Blowing smoke from the cold within,

I check in-

-to Love Rehabilitation Center-

Knowing that there's something wrong with the cacophony in my chest.

No longer a symphony previously played.

the strings stretched beyond its whim.

I have been playing until my fingertips peeled.

Bled out for wearing my heart on my sleeves.

Bitterness floods my eardrum

To the point I can no longer hear, that you are here.

Continuously wishing  to play our one hit wonders on new instruments.

Can't you see the display of sheet music confetti hurled on the floor with your footsteps on it?

Refusing to continue the show yet opening the curtain to see if I am still ready to play.

Ice caps fall as dried tears

Words escape me no longer as my throat swells with musical notes.

 My insides are dry from the inside out.

Tired of the flavor of sourness as I commence to build the bricks against my vulnerability.

Lacing up boots against my Achilles.

Feeling like that only way back up is to create my own wall to lean on.

I fear not falling in love.

I only remain cautious

against the disguised possibilities of punishment for

P

O

U

R

I

N

G

all of me into empty bottomless cups.

I'd do it again for a different result.

But to believe promises is to believe wishes can be fulfilled and truth exists in the intertwining of fingers .

Pledges of false forevers -covert operations

of stitching pains that he said he would NEVER cause again.

The strings pop off the violin

the keys unwind a desecrated hymn

the concerto now for an empty music hall.

Agony escapes the lips of a ghost dressed into a hope filled vagabond.

I check in -

no longer searching for home aside from my own

 place bars against my windows

and padding on the walls

so I can confine myself to a reality lived and unspoken

No one but my pages, pens, walls, and pillows

release the medicine,

self inflicted healing.

To no longer be disappointed in broken harps singing about unmet expectations.

Passionately sealed by

a recovering over-lover

where I refuse the one who bred certain uncertainty.

And search for the fixing of that which is unattainable-ly tangible.

I check in-

to discontinue use of my heart

For the incorrect reasons incorrect audiences.

Why not love me more?

Than constantly create sacrifices of love

priming and pruning and tightening chords for duets

-when they end as solos-

Why dedicate for collaborations when the music being played is by one instrument.

One musician?

So I check in-

because I keep hearing his music.

Yet the musician is unknown

but the song goes in unison of my own.

As if calling me in the evening towards his orchestra of one.

its not normal to feel this strongly for an invisible sound

that has abused my judgment for good music.

to the point I am deaf.

if love played live in braille and before me

i  would question its very existence for I could not even feel it.

banned from ivy leagues into the streets. no shelter from the icicles forming in my bones.

Dear love I blame you not

yet have closed my practice in tutoring alumnus

how to feel every chord and treble

being loved and giving love is the closest

we get to godliness:

sacrifice, study, selflessness, dedication, time.

And still I check in for the lack of perfection

The Show's has been canceled and I wish for rest

from the chested pain created by inharmonious cellos.