Barely Survived September

Barely made it through

September, Autumn is

playing sad death songs.

Staring at my Thomas

Kincaid calendar, red

marker poised above.

I'm longing to scratch

angry lines across the

weekdays, tear out four

weekends, removing it

from my teary blurred

vision, pretend nothing

black ever touched us.

Weary from tampering

down painful screams

fighting to come out, I

hurtfully bury deeper.

Years running together

until I'm wearing stress

rough, tattered, sickly.

Time's a cruel, cryptic

companion, stretching

hours, dragging seconds,

always he's demanding

attention from a broken

person, grieving cannot

interfere nor read hands

moving slowly around a

ticking clock, heavily it

sits upon my chest, I've

somehow forgotten how

I'm supposed to breathe.

My mouth gapes open

from disbelief but nothing

comes out other than a

silence that's deafening.

October, halfway finished,

my mind cannot process

this winter, cold, gloomy

suffocating already, I've

barely made it through

September, in the distant

I can hear the death songs.