Rubble/Skeletons

Skeletons in closets

reanimated,

hungry,

vengeful while you sleep.

The past is gone, they claim,

but it lingers in the mind

like a cloud pregnant with a raging storm

sitting heavy,

ready

waiting by the jungle

silently snarling, lips wet

and waiting.

Public faces feel much like attacks,

I hide mine and, instead, retreat

the Earth ravenous, widening,

preparing to swallow.

You look at your hands and see

a shaking, hazy blur

face flushed and pale, barely familiar,

seemingly belonging to another,

and the pills just don’t help anymore,

the weather just won’t clear,

the heavy, towering gates

are creaking shut,

thoughts like corroded bones,

numbed until ignored -

that pile of rubble

was once so precious,

that pile of bones

once held together by a spirit

those piles of ideas

once felt like promises,

once felt like a future,

once felt like the smoothened,

the crafted caress of warm concrete.

Now they feel like lost dreams, dancing

freely upon the clouds,

taunting,

vanishing

into the cold distance,

held at night by others

who must have wanted it a little more,

gone,

false promises burning,

the smoke gripping to your tonsils

while your self-image flounders

in the starving flames.