The Pastor’s Call

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Sleeping on the floor again to be closer to an ice cold surface.

Vultures approaching me slowly, flying around in circles.

The pastor called to get tomorrow’s casket in my dimensions.

My name’s getting lost on tongues, no one really mentions

How I ran faster than waves towards a steep shore to make it –

The rest of the world swam in sun while my face was moonlit,

And no one asked whether being on top felt better than drowning.

While the world slept, I cursed out the moon like wolves howling.

Smoking out the window at 3AM, half-tired and half-ready-to-go.

Using good thoughts and prayers sent my way as something to throw.

Nothing helps the anger of someone knowingly left for the dead.

Sleeping on my floor again, wishing the cold could wash out the dread.

-JW

Lighting Flashes

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Steeper by the second, it’s growing steeper.

You’re in pain just to be your brother’s keeper.

Sandcastles built on concrete, I cannot oppose –

You build unstable structures

Always ready to explode,

Always crowded with ghosts.

It’s faster each moment, it’s getting out of hand.

Can you build steady hope out of grains of sand?

The hill has no mercy, we’re both so alike.

I have nothing to say

But they’re attaching the mic.

Lower with time, my spirit is being lowered.

The third pit of hell refused to be overpowered.

My left eye is seeking God, it can’t be right.

Before the lighting flashes

I’m thrown back into the night.

-JW

Old Emblems of Fear

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Looking for catharsis in the simplest moments –

When I begged a passer-by, he quoted the Romans.

Preaching release of repression through limbos and tears

Running by churches, bowing to old emblems of fear.

I might find it, I might even find it soon,

Before the last droplets of mist start their bloom.

But the peak is scarier up-close and I can’t compare

This mountain top to another plain moment we share.

The last battle of release is approaching, I can sense

As my limbs no longer hear their own commands.

The meadow connecting Earth with the sky is missing.

Let’s run for the summit right now,

Even if the divine is hissing.

-JW

Ana

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Hands on my body, her hands are getting me drunk.

It was hard to say no so I jumped off, I sunk.

All the flags are rosy if your eyes are pumped with blood,

If your “no” causes storms and a biblical flood.

Hands on my hands, her palms get me so damn angry.

The fangs pierce my neck and she keeps the pills handy –

Just in case I try to outrun my faith and leave her be

So she chants “it’s you and me, baby” like a prophecy.

Hands on my throat, her hands are taking my breath.

I’m ready to submit while she quotes Macbeth.

All the flags are red but she’ll turn you colour-blind

And you’ll only see the best your future can offer

When it’s already behind.

-JW

Intrusions

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Mascara running into my dark circles, charcoal.

Under my foggy soul there is an equidistant hole

To a different part of the path I’ve taken in past

Wishing that temporary things were meant to last,

And I was a different person when I promised

To play it safe when times become too honest.

Not a bitter tear of regret running down my cheeks

Because fear is how lion seeks out the hurt and weak.

Who knew I was never broken, it was an illusion –

A million little moments aligned, masked as intrusions.

I’m crying unflattering drops in a loose tank top

Hoping our daughters don’t have to run in a hamster wheel

Of beauty standards that flop

Faster than they can be stopped.

-JW

Waterproof

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You should never speak to me again or even look at this direction.

The floor is made of paper cut-outs of your short aggressions.

I’m dirty, I haven’t been baptized since you entered the room.

Ceiling hanging over my neck as a guillotine but you’re yet to learn –

Under pressure I bloom.

All that’s been taken by you during decades, please, take even more.

My back is strong enough to never look back, doesn’t mean it’s not soar.

The next time we go toe to toe, don’t beg me to stay like you always do.

You should never speak of me again or ever assume for one second

My soul isn’t waterproof.

-JW

Clockwise

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Living on the edge of an astronomical clock turning backwards.

The time isn’t real, nor is the space – we’re simply bad actors.

Leaping through the worst past and present can offer, spinning

Back into my oblivion patched with torn memories, singing,

Re-enacting old scenes while the hour hand’s draining me to the bone.

Might feel obscene to these petty people living in their heads

All alone.

But I go up the minute hand, I chase the escape wheel and fall –

Hanging in the flow of the time by a blue thread, dirty and small.

Jumping after each palm reached out to me but I’m somehow missing.

My spine is rubbing into another manipulated reason to stop hissing

And get back to giving all my warm blankets to those who bow

So low to see the last inch of hope leaving the body I liked years back

But now barely know.

I cling to the second hand, almost being ripped in two by the heat.

The change of algorithm is washing my brain of sins and of greed.

Running up the hill of no escape, right up to the promised rope –

You might think I’ll make a noose but by know you must know

I’m not a trope

And I’d rather tie the ends together to keep my own brain intact

Than give you another graveyard fairy-tale of a ghoul eating the hero of my favorite tale

In the second act.

-JW

Honey Honey

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Honey, the kids aren’t doing alright this time around –

Our screaming from dusk till dawn is not like the movies have shown

And The Death Watch is making its rounds.

But honey, it’s not that gruesome, we didn’t hit hard –

The big sister got what’s coming, the little sister learned how to sprint

And how to keep up the guard.

And Hun, it’s not unusual, violence is what keeps us together –

A vulture and its prey… Which one of them is the killer? Do we even care

If they’re birds of a feather?

Honey, the little one seems traumatized, should we be quiet –

Or should she learn the rules to being her mother’s daughter already

Before starting a riot?

Oh, Hun, she’s not taking the yelling and fists too well –

Are we not normalizing the scenery enough with the props and all?

Will she hate us if she dwells?

***

“Honey, Honey, the kids aren’t doing alright still, I’m sorry to break it.

One of you under the ground, the other continuing the legacy of trauma –

It is not my place to strangle your stamina or shake it

But you could have picked a better melodrama

Than the lives you ruined by trying to make it.”

-JW

The Closure

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Crawling through all these pitiful messes to the finish line

Peeking from the hills, for the thousandth time promising

It will be mine.

It’s been years swimming in self-hate so I learned quickly

That progress is not a linear uphill drive and all achievements

Might go swiftly.

Once in a while it’s too much, and my back aches from falling,

I’m hoping I can lay there forever without ever trying to climb

But the brain is brawling.

Seven stones in my backpack trying to push me off the balance,

Rubbing against each other in symphonies of pure elegance

With pricey valance.

Whenever I’m three metres away, I lose my self-composure.

The hills are now peeking at me. The mountain disappears. Again.

“No closure this time. No closure.”

-JW

Sicker = “Healthier”

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“No one ever imagined. No one ever knew.

Nobody could tell because you weren’t that blue.”

The more you faded, the more it was praised

And everyone saw your illness but believed –

Your standards were raised.

So you became “healthier” when you got sicker.

“The pulsating veins and blood shot eyes will pass

But you will forever look like a sticker.”

A prize. A gift. The golden medal for someone else

Who never notices how pain rots on the shelves

But sex sells.

You never relied on those ideals, but they lived within you.

Too deep rooted to untangle from your truth

So no one ever knew

How the broken version of you was all fiction,

How you begged for mercy to nights

As they created the most friction

To a troublesome concept of worth in a young mind.

Why be kind? Why resist and leave it all behind?

Truth be told –

Almost no one that pushed this onto me so sincerely

Truly made it out, never saw it clearly.

But you don’t owe a single second of illness

To people who believe your existence is a grimness,

And to those still imposing standards on others I can only tell:

Save your self-hate speeches masked as advise for yourself.

Choke as long as needed. I’ve been doing it since I was twelve.

-JW