Dark Encounters

The sound most often heard is sorry,
the faces most often seen are disappointed and disappointing.
Register days as nights and time as sleep,
unreliable and unable to keep a single week.
Wedding rings and money for bedtime,
dark encounters and meetings in secret.
Bank accounts hungry and growing under the table,
with scoured visions and debt driven offers.
Scrapes and scabs and coughing on the carpet,
vomit and dirty clothes and locked doors and sadness.
Scratching I scratch I scratch for the past,
not the bad but the life without all of this.
The life without bottles and pills and knives on my skin,
the life without regretful sex and a forced pair of lips.
Rewind then fast forward her to this birthday,
bury this one alive or burn her at the stake.
Destruction has led me to lost love and love to new destruction,
boys this week, men the last,
they get younger as I grow sicker;
the tonics that ache my insides draw me to their beds like a light house in the Pacific.
I have pushed each heart away only to replace them with one night stands,
replacing morning embraces with no memory of last evening.
Should I should I should I let one of them love me again,
and can I can I can I find myself able to love one of them.