By: Jason Roley

What do you say,
When the words just drone on and on,
Like the lyrics of that pop song,
Or an overworked mom on a tirade?
You’re struggling to wade through,
The ashy shade that's accrued.

What do you say,
When all you see is crimson?
Two hearts, once connected,
Now dissected, infected with a fiery blaze.
You’re suffocating from the smoldering clouds
That faze and induce a heavy malaise,
As you lie there and bleed pools of sadness,
Your madness spilling messily on the kitchen floor.

What do you say,
When there’s nothing left to say—
Nothing at all?
When the talk, which was gay, is now a bay,
Of lifeless wood, a broken sled,
Devolving and falling,
Stalling and stonewalling.

What do you say,
When you’ve surrendered,
But trying to mend things only hurts?
The only move left is down—
Down a slippery slope into darkness.
You’re drowning,
The current shifting and twisting,
There’s no way back.
You don’t even know if you’re running—
Running on the same track.

What do you say,
When in the end,
What you intended,
Cut deeper and meaner,
Than any surgeon’s quintuple bypass,
And the wounds are slow to heal,
Like an undigested meal,
The acid corroding the steel,
Your heart no longer able to feel.
This struggle is the ultimate crumble.

What do you say,
When the gas that’s entrapped,
Explodes like napalm,
Cracking and splitting,
Like lips without lip balm.
Your soul is now a walking corpse,
High on embalming fluid.
The rest is sealed, the anger congealed,
The dream, a distant memory no longer seen.
Two steaming glaciers now familiar strangers.

What do you say?
What can you say?
Why say anything more.