Overoverover

I used to spin rhymes

At the tinkle of dimes

But lately my words have been failing me

I stutter through sentences with an overly exhausted tongue and distracted mind

Like a crippled butterfly stumbles over the wings it once knew so well

The wings that used fly

Now failing

Over and over

I used to weave tales of princesses falling in love that made the most stoic of hearts swoon

But now mine is a lackluster mind slowly spiraling into a Hell

Where expectations form iron bars

My dreams (mistakes) are the guards

Adorned with armor of self-doubt only pierceable by the finely forged words that I'm failing to find

Over and over

I'm uselessly armed with a noose of tired apologies and overused excuses

A jumble of syllables that have outgrown their uses

There was a time when I could disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed

With prose that painted pictures of people wearing too much purple at parties

And the parasiticidal dogs in the yard that didn't cry as the day of reckoning arrived for those pitiful primates in pallid pigskins

But that day is past

Those sweet times slip through my fingers like salt water from a child's cupped hands as they totter and tip over sliding sand and their soft skin simmers in the scathing sun when they scamper back to the sea for more

But when I turn, my ocean is gone

I have drained it dry and unwittingly turned my island paradise into a harsh, endless desert

And my tongue burns to once again have those sweet succulent words slide over and around and under in an endless cascade of stories and ideas that are smooth to the ear but biting and sharp to the heart

Over and over

I used to taste the tantalizing words that begged to fall from my tongue

But were held back for fear

Fear that to open my mouth against those jabbering judgmental jackals was both an act of defiance and an admission of guilt

Something that would give a reason for them to bury those violently obnoxious words they love so much into my heart to the hilt

Spewing their hate and turning against me

And happen it did

But the light of those burning bridges blinded me

The flames have caused the words that used to drip from my tongue to dry up and retreat so far into my throat

That I choke on them every day that flys past

That I'm forced to rip into my soft palette to grasp even the wispiest of words

As I try to explain that I'm still human too

Over and over

I used to be able to draw tears from the giggler at a funeral with my lamenting verse and vivid lyrics that haunted hearts long after the final word escaped the cage of the singer's lungs and the last note echoed from the body of a well loved violin

But now my lines of lyrics scrape against each other with the endlessly looping sound of a silver fork against a ceramic plate and the satisfaction of monotonously writing the same thing with a dull pencil against paper until the lead is gone and I am stuck with the skritch, skritch, skritching of pencil wood growing louder and louder in my mind, pushing me closer, ever closer to the edge of sanity

to the stitches that are holding me together as I fall apart at the seams

Relentless

Pitiless

Over and over

A long time ago, I could tell my tale and retain my dignity

But now there is no point

I am in pieces on the ground

A doll that had enough and threw itself off its shelf just to change its own painted on face

I am broken at the bottom

A child who didn't understand the danger of the edge and drew too close to that scarlet sky

I am a shadow in the closet

A monster who is too afraid of the dark to open the door more than a crack

A long time ago, I was a whole person

But now I am a crippled butterfly that flew too close to the sun; my wings are a pile of juxtapositions that I've grown tired of trying to piece back together

Over and over and over