HOPE AFTER ALL

I have grown so weary.

The pain from all the harms has saturated me.

The wounds are too many.

There are scars upon scars.

My heart has crumbled to dust.

The soulache I feel is indescribable.

My knuckles are stained red from the blood I've shed when I would beat myself up.

I was always my own enemy.

And oh how I hated me.

I saw myself as weak.

The self-loathing went all the way down to my very core.

Like a tumour that had devoured everything that was me.

With no hope for a cure.

My thoughts slowly killed me.

I know I betrayed myself over and over.

I was filled with anger over this.

Which begat rage, which begat fear, which begat suffering.

There was just nothing in me for me.

I never could figure out what my so-called life was for.

Never did I find the reason for me.

Now it feels as though it's just too damn late.

Maybe it is.

Maybe all this is a dream become a nightmare.

But it all feels too real.

Maybe my feelings are lying to me again.

It wouldn't be the first time.

I never could get very far from myself.

My own inner voice was what destroyed me.

I look all around me and I see the desolation.

Everything...EVERYTHING!!!

Was in ruins.

I lived under blood red skies.

I walked on a scorched earth.

The acrid smell of my burning world filled my paper lungs.

I choked as I slowly suffocated.

My life and my world became a quarantine.

My poison slowly spread throughout all of me.

Slowly I sank deep into myself.

Where I lived became a prison then a tomb.

My fate became sealed.

I was damned, I was condemned.

I was forsaken, as I felt.

No one could tell me otherwise.

No one could get close enough.

And I didn't care, I didn't give a damn any more.

No one else cared.

And it didn't matter.

Nothing mattered.

For nothing was what I felt and still do to this very day.

My memories began to fade like old photographs.

The corners curled up.

And everything became just too hard to make out.

So I gave up.

I never could find myself anyway.

Lost somewhere along the way.

Not that I did ever go anywhere.

I was perfectly content.

Prodigal?

So what!

Apathy was just fine with me.

No one cared, why should I?

Then I awoke.

I opened my eyes.

My sight was fogged over.

Then everything cleared.

I was horrified.

I was still living my so-called life.

My feelings were still lying to me.

My emotions couldn't be trusted either.

Of which was I better off with?

Lost in my own imagination?

Or lost in this life of death?

I have no answer.

All I know, is that I'm here,

right here,

right now, where I always am.

Surrounded by my six walls.

Where the darkness was absolute.

Whether damned in a nightmare,

or damned in a dead life still didn't matter.

Unforgiven and forsaken.

God has turned His back on me.

Just like I continually turned my back on Him.

But I cannot help but to feel like I am being lied to still.

God, are You still there?

Can You hear me?

If You are there somewhere, can You save me from myself?

I think I've almost done myself in.

Everything good and alive in me has almost been bled of it all.

I've only enough strength to hold onto what tatters remain of my hope.

And that hope still seems to not have let me down.

Maybe there's still hope for me after all.

I just don't know,

I'm still not so sure.

I don't know where to go from here,

when here is still nowhere.

My living Hell.

I can still see a micro sized shimmer of light.

Is it artificial light,

or is it the glimmer of light left that's guiding me home?

Something I've never really known.

But I am still trying to believe,

something so hard for me.

It's so hard to believe with all this hanging over my head like black storm clouds.

But the little hope I have keeps me going.

Even though I feel I'm not going anywhere.

"Hey dummy! Feelings lie!" I try to tell myself.

Whether it's anywhere or nowhere it still doesn't really matter.

I just want to find a place to belong in a world where I don't belong.

I just want to find somewhere that I can call home.

Where I can finally rest.

My candle has almost melted all the way down to a soon to be a bloody hardened pool of what was once who I was.

I never did know or understand that part of me.

But, then, I remember.

I am still here,

that's somewhere.

That's something,

something to hold onto.

Something that I can call hope.

Looks like nowhere is somewhere.

It may not be much.

But it's something,

and that's everything.

I guess I matter after all.

There's reason and why for my life.

That's all I need to hold on, to hold out.

I can finally believe in myself, I can forgive and love myself again, for the first time.

I have hope,

hope's all that I need.

And that's enough.

SCOTT DAVID BUCKLEY

MY EMPTY HOUSE

I'm all alone in an empty house.

I feel so hollow.

The tears taste so bitter.

That's how I am feeling.

All alone within myself.

I think of you,

even though I don't want to.

It hurts so very much.

I am having trouble holding on.

It's so hard when there's no one to hold me up.

Someone to tell me everything's going to be okay.

All this pain I keep hidden deep down in my soul.

But it's killing me.

I want to be numb.

I don't want to feel anything.

The tears, oh how they burn.

I'm feeling that I just cannot go on.

I don't want to go on.

My heart has blackened.

My heart has hardened.

I wish that you were here with me still.

I have so much that I need to say to you,

face to face.

So much I want to take back, but I know that I cannot.

You are gone, and I'm still here.

I have to go on living.

No matter how much it hurts.

But I do not want to.

I want to look and see you with me.

I know that you have gone away.

You have gone home at last.

I know that your pain and suffering are at an end.

But I cannot help but to mourn.

Even though I know that I will see you again someday.

But it still hurts so very much.

No one sees me cry,

no one knows of my pain.

In life I never said that I love you to you.

I just want that chance to again for the first time.

As I sit here, in my heart I know that I love you,

and that you know that I love you too.

Still I hold onto all the hurt and pain.

I'm afraid to let them all go.

What if you go too?

I will never forget you.

Even though there was much anger and hatred shared between us.

I still bear the scars on my skin.

I still can see all that all too well.

I still ask why.

But it doesn't matter any more.

It's all moot.

I closed my eyes and you were gone.

Leaving your empty shell behind.

I can still see it as though you were just sleeping just as I did that night.

I long for the days that you were alive.

It's not the same with just the memories in my heart and my mind.

So many of them are faded like old photographs.

Others are all scorched, 

others are all burnt.

So I put them all in a box and seal it forever.

I don't want to see them again.

It just hurts so very much,

too much.

I will not return here again.

Even though I will always remain in this empty house.

Hollow as it is,

hollow as I am.

SCOTT DAVID BUCKLEY

THE LIVING HELL I AM LIVING (IN MY MIND)

I am stained red.

My heart and soul have blackened.

I am torn and left in tatters blowing in the wind.

I am shaking with fear.

Despair is choking me.

I drop to my knees,

then facedown into the crimson muck.

I am ashamed.

I suffer the blame.

It's a crime that I am.

I live in the prison I made myself.

There's nothing more for me to say.

I have given up all hope.

My faith is dead.

All of my lies have brought me here.

And I have killed myself.

I drew the line and then crossed it.

What else was I to do?

I saw no end.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel.

Just absolute dark.

I don't believe in any rock bottom,

or at least I shot right through mine.

So there's no looking up for me.

I am down,

I will always be down.

All my options have been wasted.

So here I am,

where I always am.

Out in the open, exposed.

The driving rain falls down on me like hundreds of arrows.

The frigid wind hits me like a barrage of bullets and warheads from a thousand guns.

I am so cold and afraid.

I am all huddled up, shivering.

Wondering where am I going from here,

and just where is here?

It feels like nowhere.

I've been walking in circles for the whole of my life.

I am lost, 

I am fallen.

I cannot run, I cannot get away from myself.

Wherever that I go there I am as well.

My own worst enemy.

I give myself up every time.

I betray myself with a kiss.

God has turned His back on me.

Forgotten and forsaken.

I guess He doesn't want me any more.

My name has been taken away,

I am no one.

I have no identity,

I have no point of origin with which I can refer to.

I cannot start over again.

I will not even try.

It seems so useless to me.

Just when I was beginning I came to an abrupt end.

I hit my end going faster than the speed of light.

I lie here crying.

Knowing that there is nothing left for me.

I am in the middle of a vicious circle,

a vicious cycle with no end in sight.

I spin faster,

faster still,

and faster still.

My mind is unable to comprehend,

eventually it just stops.

It doesn't work any more.

Not that it did in the first place.

It is fallen apart just like I am.

Anger and hate have taken over.

Feeding the rage inside me.

All this takes so much out of me.

Leaving nothing of me.

I am me no more.

I want to die,

but I died a long time ago.

There is no more reason.

There is no more purpose.

My mind is chaotic and psychotic.

Call me a psychopath.

I have quarantined myself.

I am toxic.

I am bleeding internally.

I have began shutting down.

This grey world has turned black.

I am fading away,

I am fading out.

I murdered love.

I murdered who I really am.

Left lying where I was,

where I am.

Let me rot, let me decay.

I am not me any more.

No one will remember me.

Just a tiny figment of a imagination.

To hell with this living hell that I am living.

I am burning with a cold fire.

I am ash and cold embers.

Left behind.

I burned out,

I burned away.

This is all, this is nothing.

And I just do not understand anything.

What is going on?

My body is wrapped in a vine of thorns.

The thorns bite into me and keep going deeper and deeper.

There is just no more.

I am no more.

SCOTT DAVID BUCKLEY

I HAVE BECOME WHAT I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN

The world makes a lot of noise,

it's deafening.

It always makes me feel so violated.

And I always feel like I am covered in a thick covering of filth that I just cannot wash or even scrub off.

No matter how hard that I try.

Living in this world makes me feel so cold and dark and all alone.

I just don't know where to go.

I just don't know what to do.

I don't even know what to say, or if I even should.

What's to say anyway?

No matter what, I know it will all be the same to me.

Pain, hurt, suffering and anger are inevitable.

And that's a given.

I do not see any use in any of this.

Just what is in it for me?

What's wrong with me?

Is it all my fault?

I know that I don't belong here,

even though I still look for a place to belong.

My heartstrings are unravelling.

My seams are all coming apart.

And my mind is growing more frayed with the passing of each moment.

Maybe it's just me.

I just don't know!

If I'm the one to make my own choices, 

then,

how the hell am I supposed to when I have no choice?

All this puts immense pressure on the hinges of my sanity and reality.

All that I have buried deep down inside me is about to come out like a nuclear detonation.

Man, this world must really hate me!

If she doesn't care about me, 

then why does she always beat up on me?

What did I do to bring all of this down on me?

What did I do to deserve all of this?

I certainly do not want any of this.

Its weight is just too much for me to bear.

I've already had enough.

I just want it all to end.

When will it end?

Will it end?

This world doesn't want me.

Heaven doesn't want me.

Hell doesn't want me.

I don't even want me.

I am shivering from the cold so hard that I am starting to crack and crumble into dust.

And the dust is filling my lungs.

I cough and choke.

Someone please stop this damned world,

I want to get off.

I try to walk my paths, but all my paths lead me to nowhere.

Just where is nowhere?

But here I am in the middle of nowhere.

Living on the outskirts of life,

on the wrong side of the tracks.

No one wants to associate with me.

I don't blame them,

I don't even want to associate with me.

I'm afraid to close my eyes at night because I will just have to open them again in the morning.

With blood red skies above me.

With scorched and burnt memories in a twisted mind, heart and soul.

I hate this world I am condemned to live in.

I regret everything,

and I regret having regrets.

I only have brought shame and dishonour upon myself.

Knowing full well that I have brought the same upon my God.

Maybe He doesn't want me to be His child any more.

Maybe I have fallen from His grace.

God are You ignoring me?

Have You forsaken me?

'Cause I feel I've been cursed.

I live with ridicule and fear in this so-called life of "mine".

My hope has become hopeless.

My faith has turned to air and blown away.

And I'm down on bloodied hands and knees.

I haven't the strength to continue.

And everything is on me.

It's all me, me alone.

I am at fault.

I am guilty.

I have been sentenced to life,

life living this death.

I cry aloud and I scream till I burst at the seams.

Just look at the mess I am,

the mess that I have made.

I cannot help but to feel sorrow and despair.

So much so that my tears flow like a raging white water river.

My pillow is blemished with all the tear stains.

And that's how I see myself,

a stain.

Unwanted and undesirable.

How can I hate this world when I hate myself even more?

Did the world do all this to me?

Did life do this to me?

Did I do it to myself?

Just forget it!

How can I, when I am reminded when I peek into my broken mirror?

I'm such a disappointment,

to God, to myself, to each and every one I have met along the way.

Everyone came into and then out of my life.

Or did I run away, leaving them behind?

None of this really matters any more.

I am such a failure of my own.

Maybe I'm a failure of God as well.

But that doesn't really make any sense at all.

So, here I am.

I am always here.

Wondering where and if I am going from here.

I just don't know!

God, where are You?

Can't You hear my cries and pleas?

I know I am just a speck,

but have You forgotten about me?
I don't want to blame You,
but I am feeling helpless here.
If You know everything I need and if You will provide;
why then am I burdened with all of this?
With no end in sight.
With no hope of receiving assurance.
All of which are foreign to me.
God, is there a chance that You can come and save me,
save me from myself?
I am my own worst enemy.
And I am afraid of myself the most,
for I know what I am capable of.
I know if I continue this way I will catch up to myself,
then I am sure to do myself in.
Does that matter to You?
I am not so sure it does to me.
So I separate, I isolate.
I am a biohazard.

A dangerous contagion.
I am toxic, I am poisonous, I am caustic.
I will pull anyone who wanders too close down with me.
Would you listen to me,
I have become the world.
And the world has become me.
It's no wonder that I am what I am.
I have done all this to myself.
The whys and therefores are moot.
I don't want any more of it any more.
If only I could throw it away.
Lay it down somewhere and leave it far behind.
Put it all to flame and watch it burn.
Would I be free then?
God, please, take me away from myself.
Please take all of this away from me.
It's just too much to hold much less to carry.
It's making my soul sick.
My soul is blackened.
God please suck the poison from my veins.
Can You heal all of my open wounds?
Can you put me back together again?
Could You possibly clean up this big mess that I am?
I have become what I have always been.
I no longer want to be.
God please!

SCOTT DAVID BUCKLEY

THE HEALING BEGINS

There's a tear in my soul.

I can hear the whistle as it breathes out.

There's a hole in my heart.

Where you used to be.

Here I am now, bleeding out, remembering you.

 It's like cutting myself wide open.

I do it to myself every time.

Each time the blade goes deeper and deeper.

Memories of you are dark,

darker than a starless night sky.

I would give anything just to have some more time.

Time to finish what was beginning.

The healing was just beginning.

Then it just ended.

But not for me.

I remember that night well.

My last words to you were so malicious.

I never knew that that night would be the last night that I would miss the chance to make everything right.

Not that I did not have the time prior.

We had a whole lifetime together.

Forty years passed by so fast.

We both missed the chance to bridge the chasm between us.

You did try though.

But it was just not good enough for a selfish man such as I was.

I swallowed your poison years long gone.

So I took every opportunity to spit it all back in your face.

You dropped all your anger and hate all on me,

so I did the same to you.

I never could love or forgive myself, 

much less anyone else.

But all this doesn't matter any more.

The time in the glass jar ran out a long time ago,

and no one ever turned it back over.

I never could say that I love you, 

but I sure could say that I hate you easily.

And those words were more than just words.

I caused you much hurt and pain.

I remember hearing you crying alone in your room,

as I used to in my room all those years ago.

Why does history have to repeat itself all the time?

But history is only shaped by all our choices and decisions.

We did it to ourselves, you and I.

I would have liked to let you in to where we could begin again for the first time.

And learn to love and forgive so the healing could begin.

But when you fell asleep that night and never woke up, brought all that to an abrupt halt.

You never did say good-bye.

The angels quietly came and took your soul back home.

Leaving me here with all of my regrets.

Which I regret having.

It never did hit me that you were gone.

The shock of that night remains to this very day.

 The hurt and the pain certainly are still here.

I feel it all to my very core.

Right here, right now, I just want to take all that I said and did back.

I just want one more chance to look into your eyes,

to say that I am sorry for everything.

But those bridges were turned to charcoal and ash quite some time ago.

I would give anything to see you one more time just to hold you in my arms and to tell you I now understand you.

"God, could You tell my father that I am sorry and that I forgive him."

"And God, could You tell him that I love him?"

"One more thing God, could you teach me to love and forgive myself?"

Then the healing could begin.

SCOTT DAVID BUCKLEY

WHAT WAS WAS NOT (NIGHTMARE)

My soul is dry as a drought.

My heart cannot breathe.

I have swallowed too many of my tears.

My life has become toxic.

My world is scorched.

Blocking out the sun.

Ash falls on me.

I am choking.

I am stagnant as lonely pool of dirty water.

There is only dust in my veins.

I am fallen.

My cries are but whimpers.

My eyes have been sewn shut.

I have been fenced in.

Condemned to a prison of my own construct.

Six walls, no windows, no door.

The dark is absolute.

I am so cold.

This is my iceage.

Extinction has come for me.

I will not be remembered.

Welcome to the nightmare that is my life.

All has been done at my own hands.

Which are stained red.

I am my own worst enemy.

I hate, I loathe.

I am enraged.

Fear grips my mind.

It's all over now.

I never had a chance in hell.

Now there is hell to pay.

I am just so weary.

Hear my lament.

This is an ode for the silent ones.

Silence is screaming,

deafening!

We are the forgotten,

the left out,

the left behind, and the forsaken.

I only know of despair and hopelessness.

Affliction has racked my mind.

This my torture.

It worsens the longer that I continue to live.

May death claim me soon.

My will is gone.

I have nothing,

I am nothing.

The caustic has poured all over me.

Soon I will cease to exist.

I question if I ever did live.

Was it all a lie?

I am not afraid of Hell, I have already gone through it.

I have already lived it.

This all was just a story,

or was it?

SCOTT DAVID BUCKLEY

IT'S ALL ON ME

I have come to realize,

that God is not the one who is absent from my life.

That would be myself.

I was the one who up and just walked away.

Never giving it a second thought.

Except to blame God for all that I feel,

and all that I go through.

I have come to realize,

that it's my own feelings lying to me.

My emotions always put me in a fog.

It's my choices that have lead me to where I am.

My choices were motivated by my feelings.

My choices should be motivated by my faith.

I should rely on the hope that is in my faith in my God.

But, at the end of the day, and after all has been said and done,

It all comes down to this:

Shame on God?!!!

NO!!!

Shame on man!!!

SCOTT DAVID BUCKLEY