{ i should've known }

this morning i thought, i should've known you weren't done hurting me. that you'd get some more mileage out of this tired broken situation, that you'd throw your jagged weight around a little more, that there was still some momentum in your fists. then it seemed melodramatic. then i thought about how much i've lost at your behest, and it didn't. i thought any power to hurt me had been sapped from your hands, but your sorcery knows no bounds. i don't think i've given you any of the power you've displayed recently. if anything, i've gained considerable ground of my own these past few months. i've relinquished nothing. i can only surmise that you must know you're about to lose me forever and this is your last surge of darkness, your last efforts to embroil me in another half-decade of crippling loss.

as tragic as it would be, i feel the shadowy appeal of that idea --- of the ashes in my throat, the heartless plodding forward, the desperation of a fatal wound, a soul's propulsion off-course, weaving erratically, plummeting downward. i feel the pull of pain. it's compelling. loss is my friend, stumbling around lame has become easy, yearning hopelessly for brighter days is what i know. it's terrible and sick, but in a way i want all that back because it's familiar. i know who i am when i'm hurt, i know where to hide, i know what songs will lull a pinched and shaken mind to sleep.

i don't know who i am right now, i have no fucking idea what to do with this strength. what happens when shit explodes and i accept it and calmly set it aside, patiently ready for the redemption that i've always had to wait and work years to find? what happens when humanity lets me down in the most tragic of ways and i blink silently because, well, that's to be expected, but i'll kindly return to my own enlightment now, thank you very much? what happens when the work of my hands and the legacy of my heart is blasted to nothingness and i stand there weeping until i hear the echoes of industry and formation ringing back to me from an unbelievable, thriving future?

in these moments, the comfortable dark of i might never recover strokes my arms, croons my name, calls me friend. the hard, sure brightness of there are greater things yet for you sounds strident in comparison. i want to lie down, i want to be lost, i want to be held. flinging myself forward, finding my way, and embracing what's ahead sounds like hard work. it sounds exhausting. it sounds like something i'm not sure i can do. i suppose it sounds like the very stuff this tragic rebirth has been preparing me for.

i should've known.

i should've known i would outlive you,

and that these mended bones would be tested.

i should've known i would absorb your force,

that it would increase my strength somehow.

and you should've known

you will never touch me, you cannot reach me,

i'm approaching the top of the stratosphere,

i am higher still, i am shattering barriers as i go.

and the hard, bright diamonds of better days

are cascading, waiting to meet me.