Lies were told at the worst time imaginable. She laid in her sunken bed. Her heart was weeping, though she showed none of us. "Something is wrong" she said, as her eyes widened and her chest heaved. Her hands numb, as if they were phantom limbs. Convulsions shook the whole room and shocked my heart. Innocuous questions asked over space bound signals. Did we ever see the real you? The right question that no one asked for years to come. Our perspective was tainted by our pain. Red, white, and blue lights flashed moments of illumination on this sorry scene. Wheeled on out while I was held down. It was the coldest December we had ever seen. It froze our hearts. It brought us to places we thought we would never be. It snuck up on us, like a thief in the night. --- This is not unlike being lost at sea. A lonely captain, towing his line, hoping for a bite. There was a captain before me. She commanded this ship with fervor and intention. A rogue wave swept her off this deck and out to sea. To sink. To never be found among these reefs. Now I care for this vessel. My hands alone hoist the sails, though this air is devoid of wind. The only option I have is to hope for a day when I can chase that rogue wave. When I see it, this hull will slice through it; as I have been preparing. It knows that I search for it. It will forever elude me while it mocks my petty efforts. --- There is a hole in my head. It leaks the blackest blood. Peer through this dirty window and see what I have hidden; from you, from everyone. Lost in the middle of stormy seas; the gales that smash waves against my hull were born of your rotten lips and weak lungs. Yet they brewed the worst of weather for treading these dark waters. I put my faith in your twisted truths. You spun quite the tragically beautiful web of lies. Our loss is now irreversible. A pile of great things in great magnitudes thrown away for the most brown and withered grass on the other side of that white picket fence. It all looked so enticing; did it not? You see the truth now, I would bet. My cold bed is the only one that loves me anymore. It is my friend when no companion can be found. It embraces me with more compassion than you ever showed me between these sheets. I want you to look in the mirror. I want you to see the rotted flesh that hides behind your painted face. You will never have the gumption to look your own self in the eyes. If you ever saw the real you, behind all of your facades, it would crush you. Your hiding is the only way you can get yourself to fall into and through the next day. --- You see; these things feel just the same. They both make the barren tree branches loom over my head. One presence I wish for again. One; I have begun to loathe the remembrance of. Where is there a full moon to be found? God has only been trimming his nails for the past seven years. She told me she felt as if she were wading through mud. There's no way she could have known that sensation. I can try to vomit words. I can pluck broken strings. I can cut rotted paper. None of it brings solace. --- These streets have always been flooded. Other beings have only found me washed up on the banks of this murky river. They've only nudged me back out into the current. It drags me under. Down to the bottom. Those who returned me here have no understanding of the consequences of their decision. It is why my lights stay off. It is why my curtains stay drawn. It is why my sink is always full. If they knew what they had done they would be diving down here to pull up my sunken corpse. --- Time takes all that we love, have loved, or will love; and crushes it before our eyes. It has no comprehension of our pain. It moves on no matter how hard we grip it hands and scream out to slow its cadence.