Dragon Eyes

I trace the bruises that are etched on your knuckles

and I wait for you to see

the eyes that are sinking into yours,

telling you that it’s fine.

It's fine.  

Morning will come

and you’ll feel the silence,

the chirping, the orange warmth

and it will heal the scars

on your back.

It will flush the poison that flows in your veins.

The one where you were backed in a corner and made to gulp.

There is a stillness in you,

that is in me.

We forget that it is holy.

That it is a gift.

The world has choked us and forced us to come undone.

Our muscles are worn out, mine before yours.

I’ve been here before.

But there continues to be a glimmer that will never die out.

The plurality of a disordered self.

Let it all spill out of you,

out in the open, on the ground.

Stare down at the horror that lives in you.

Don’t you dare look away.

Befriend it.

Shake the bloody hand.

Don’t you see?

You are alone,

And you must carry that.

You can run to the end of the earth,

and you will still find your soul desolate.

You will still have to sit with the obscenity of your pain.

Your heart will still look like a dark abyss.

Another sorry ending,

or the survival of a boy that is just like me?