Bullet Scarred Glass

Bullet-Scarred Glass

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I am bullet-scarred glass,

I'm crazed crazy-paving cracks.

Insane haphazard drawings.

I am tracings of tracks

marked with barbed and blunt needles,

drawn again and again.

I am taken from overused,

long-emptied veins.

-

I am shooting in galleries,

shooting up blind.

I'm filling baggies with baggage

you can’t leave behind.

-

I am written in blood.

I'm the unsightly sight.

I am the guilt the next morning

and the shakes in the night.

-

I am every craving

you cannot deny.

I'm the ‘cut myself shaving’

the bruise to the eye.

-

I am the will to let loose

I'm the freedom to fly.

And you wanted to live

but I’ll persuade you to die

I am serpents in deserts

I will never desert you

-

I am the dessert

that you cannot say no to.

I am comfort eating

while you fight weight gain.

And after you purge

I’ll be flushing the chain.

-

I am malnutrition,

and I am starvation.

I am binge eating,

and I promise salvation.

I am tempting temptation,

just one more wafer thin slice.

-

I am offering sensation

to the bodies on ice.

-

I am the ‘one more that can’t hurt’ ,

the one step too far.

I am sculpted with scalpels,

carved from keloid scars.

I am cut so much deeper

than they’ll ever know.

-

I'm the next handful of sleepers,

and the wish to let go.

-

I am blood on the porcelain

each time you slice.

I'm the urge to cut deeper.

I pretend to play nice,

You pretend that you want me to,

but we both know you’re lying.

-

I am the very last gasp,

when you’re lying there dying.

I am the hangman,

who’s calling your name.

-

And I am your companion

on your walk of shame.

On the walk past the church,

you’re too ashamed to attend.

I was there at the beginning

And I'm here at the end,

And I never pretended

that I was your friend.

-

I am composing each line

of your suicide letter.

And you’re supposing these words

will make it all better.

-

When they knock down the door,

and your best friend,

or your lover

or your mother

or your serious other

or even some random stranger,

finds your corpse on the floor.

-

(Photograph and writing by Danny Darke. For more information about the author and any of his other works, please visit the website at dannydarke.com Thank you!)