The cracks on my soul (poem)

I said you were a tempest of flame,

that daisies grew through your cracks:

Proclamations of your strength,

of the inherent power to succeed,

an undeniable worth to your being.

Yet I hide those words from myself,

let doubts and fears fill me,

feeling like a candle facing a hurricane,

ready to be extinguished,

wishing I could be a tempest of flame.

I see the cracks on my soul,

the scars and failures of my past,

and see a barren broken surface,

where nothing could grow out of,

my soul broken and made of stone.

Stop and listen to the cackle of the flames,

and hear the voice calling out to me

in the moments before they engulf me,

stretching across my body turning stone to soil,

planting seeds in a tempest of flame.

-Zero

Branded (poem)

Any day I think I'm going to break now,

too many hours spent playing repairman

in this large sandcastle kingdom,

wishing the tide would wash it all away.

I think I'm losing my mind now,

a burning in my heart tears me apart,

makes me want to smash those screens

in an attempt to break free.

I'm having trouble finding a way out,

it's either it all goes up in flames

or I burn out and fall to ash,

and either way I lose.

Convince myself of one more night,

hoping that I can survive it,

only to leave closer to breaking

and I'm scared to get any closer.

Any day I think I'm going to break now,

and I don't know what to do...

-Zero

The Pain of Hope (poem)

It's true that hope can hurt.

Like in times of heartbreak or rejection,

when we dared to hope for more

than we were ultimately given.

We hope to be finally understood,

to have someone witness our darkest demons

and stand against them with us,

instead of running away in fear or horror.

We hope to find that we're not too broken,

that we're not just shards of glass

scattered across a cold cement floor,

waiting to be swept up and thrown out.

We hope for so much,

and then heartbreak stomps its way in,

crushing our deepest hopes

as we're forced to say goodbye.

But for all of hope's pain,

hopelessness is a worse affliction -

the belief that we will never be understood,

that we truly are too broken.

Because when we find ourselves lost,

disconnected and alone,

hope is sometimes all we have:

the hope of finding help,

of rescue.

-Zero