The Gallows

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Your love is like a noose

And all the witches must be hanged.

The people who choose to look away

Are executioners too.

They can’t be saved.

If I only knew back then

The lengths your self-hate goes,

I would know when to leave.

But I was naïve

And it shows.

I heave from the pressure,

My nostrils shut closed.

Your soul’s a damn fixture,

The bruises you leave

Are your favourite ghosts.

Yet your love is still a noose,

No witch can be spared.

Some win and some lose.

But if you look the other way

You can’t be saved.

So hang me if you dare.

-JW

The Road

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Let’s follow the blood splattered in the glistening snow,

Let’s take the path neither of us ever wanted to go.

The branches shuffle over our heads like playing cards,

The claws of the cold are sharp, they’re pointier than darts.

But the path has no ending and we can’t catch a break.

The air leaving our lungs freezes the nearby lake.

Might as well be an underwater scene or the desert –

We ignore the view when the truth is unpleasant.

The roads will take us home, treat the open wounds,

Get us to the finish line before the bloodhounds

And keep our numb hands clear of all the past misdeeds.

One more step and they will let us live

As long as we bleed.

-JW

The Woods

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Some days I don’t recognize her silhouette against the horizon.

Her feet run like a river but her mind is a dark moon rising.

Some days she follows me silently, waiting for the right moment,

And I only realize when it’s too late, once my mouth is foaming.

She doesn’t bite, she only chuckles in the foggy street corners.

She spreads the disease by filling my head with ten mourners.

The crows are chasing the sparks of my brain through the park,

I trip and tumble over my own two feet, no clarity in this dark.

Her presence is stronger, she comes closer, it’s a rollercoaster.

My shivering back pressed against a tree, sky picturesque like a poster.

I hold what’s left of my breath, squeeze my lids together tightly.

When I dare to look again, I hear a whisper sliding through the woods:

“Next time don’t fight me.”

-JW

Dysmorphic

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The coldness builds up in my stomach and neck,

A cold palm wrapping tighter around the edges,

Tighter around the wreck.

My insides shake violently, they dance around,

And I want to scream “No!” at strangers

But I can’t make a sound.

The coldness takes over my breathing, my jaw.

I grasp what’s left of me, I try to move away,

I claw and claw, and claw…

But it’s freezing my brain, the mirrors are milky.

No space left for a thought or a gulp of air.

My tongue feels silky.

The worst kind of poison is cutting open my head,

A merciless killer questioning my worth,

Leaving my body in shreds.

The coldness starts tasting like the sweetest morphine,

It fools my eyes completely, unavoidably

As I turn dysmorphic.

-JW

Lost

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Looking for my own ten commandments,

Preaching my own deadly sins.

Strikes, lines, crosses, repeated amendments.

Pulling out Band-Aids and pins.

Each border I traverse hits me in the chest,

It scorches the bubbling skin.

It’s a travesty – when I left my past to rest

I wrapped it in second-hand tin.

The narrative erases the last of my patience,

My innocence is wearing thin.

Greed and lust, two of reality’s best agents,

Become my next of kin.

I’m still seeking my own ten commandments,

Repeating my favorite sins.

Death wishes keep hiding in the finest of prints,

Tattooed with bloody pens.

-JW

Honour My Wishes

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Unremarkable, irrelevant, overly talked about but never quite acknowledged.

They let the spiteful paragraphs fly, my nightmares turn into a broken promise.

The tears freeze in the cold December air, they form perfect salty spheres.

Grainy pictures slide by as my consciousness morphs into a guilty plea no one hears.

Honour my wishes, I beg you, honour them,

Don’t listen to the fat they’re chewing.

The lighting is unavoidable, it holds the clouds up

With the strong winds brewing.

Unavoidable, facetious, overrated but never judged fairly enough to fail.

They write down my every mistake, then distribute the list by mail.

The fireworks start, make me lose my sight and my sense of direction.

My ears ring as the thought bubble above my brain dissolves into friction.

Honour my wishes, I beg you, honour them,

Don’t ever let my feet touch the ground.

The destruction is immanent, wait it out

Until a new storm is crowned.

-JW

Gusto

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Can’t get out of my bed, can’t help humming the melody,

The one you sang while I was drifting off to sleep.

Yet I hold on to my sizzling ego, set fire to the lying tarot.

Each night I make the grave mistake of standing in your shadow.

Can’t turn away, can’t think of a place that I’d rather be.

I’m twisting and turning, counting all the lost sheep.

But it wasn’t a surprise when you forgot, it was long expected.

I was born to be mistaken for a woman who can be neglected.

Should’ve built dream chateaus,

But now I’m polishing your gusto.

Yet I hold on to my sizzling ego, set fire to the lying tarot.

Each night I make the grave mistake of standing in your shadow.

-JW

Anniversary

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I’ve ruined three hundred pages with ink to chase you

Only to learn I’d rather break my neck twice than erase you.

It’s you, it’s you, and it always will be.

Yet – faith has nothing to do with destiny

So I pray for somebody else tonight, I send my love to another.

You’ll never know, you’ll never be bothered.

I’m growing tired and my words are slouching.

You didn’t offer comfort, you offered coaching –

And I wish I’d known it wasn’t care, it was business,

It was a contract and I was paying by the minute.

Yet I never burned the ink, I could never make it suffer…

Hope you’re having your own vanity for supper.

-JW

Self-Destruction

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I thought I could freeze the sadness out of me,

I thought I could caffeinate it out or paint it over with glee.

I wished once I stopped shaking, I’d be free

But no amount of distraction could part the stormy sea.

I left the window open until my skin felt static.

I wished you could guide my senses, fussy and erratic,

And I truly hoped the enormous heavy feeling inside would slip under,

Almost like dying peacefully, almost like beating a thunder.

Just like other memories they’d drift away into a dream,

Yet we’re too gentle to open the void, too gentle to ever grow mean.

So I drift off to sleep in the freezing room one more time.

The night pours saltwater in my aching bruises,

It burns like lime.

-JW