Hindsight Of Evil Eyes Behind Their Honest Lies / Heat Waves Goodbye Poem by Ash Hickok

It was just me-
trust me,
before steel wills grew rusty,
deflated and jaded,
the things that filled me
killed me.
I admit it, so when will you see something in me
through the cracks of yesterday’s shattered reality?

I value all the time I’ve wasted-
the way you put a number to a debt.
I know the exact value of atrophy and I memorized driving directions to jaded,
the real numbers for absolution are carved in my chest and stone-set.

Hope is a quiet prayer-
a whisper in your ear you only half-believe you are actually hearing...
The reticent voice in the air
daring you to find the lips that are speaking,
even though no mouths are moving anywhere.
Logic and sight can empower reality into making any belief in hope seem deceiving.
As bad as things seem today I know there were at least two worse days;
yesterday and tomorrow will always
be the only two days worse than today...

Illusions of friendship depreciate the genuine emotional gravity reality is all about.
You can forget every black-out,
but you are not forgiven and even the nights never remembered still happened.
The moments were real, it was the friends who turned out fake.
It’s been so long I can’t picture their faces, but I’d recognize the back of each friend.
I was a fast learner on how to put a price tag on a mistake.
A nightmare may not be real, but it is really a nightmare even after you are awake.
One morning I woke up alone with everything taken and nothing around I wanted to take.
I’ve heard before that it can’t rain everyday, but everyday it’s raining somewhere
and I know exactly where.
With the sure hindsight of an evil eye behind it’s own honest lie,
on a hot day in the last summer with a measure of happiness,
I never saw the heat wave goodbye.
The music stopped with a dead beat-
In the summer’s heat, the smell of dead hope rotting in the air was so thick I could taste it.
I am sick of seeing fair-weather friends’ cold fronts
and since the last forgotten goodbye I haven’t had the chance to say hello even once.

-a.s.h.