Ink and Blood

Write as if your life depends on it.

There is a gravity to sadness,
a slick weight that drags me
down into a rusted well,
walls wet with old despair.
Anxiety, like spiders,
hides in the dark.
I claw at the edges,
my nails breaking,
fingers smeared with darkness
and blood.

I jump.
I fall.
The ladder’s missing three rungs.

Even the echo forgets me.
Shadows curl around my ankles,
whispering, laughing,
like old friends turned enemies.

I put one foot in front of the other,
fingers raw,
knees scraped,
breath ragged
as smoke
in a Neighborhood Tavern.

Hope drips in
through cracks
in the walls,
thin light
like whiskey
in a chipped glass,
long-lost,
bitter,
warming my chest.

I rise.
I’m lifted.
I move on.

Sanctuary waits,
an ink pen glows
in the candlelight,
and I take it,
put it to the paper,
and it all resides
deep in my chest.

Author's Note

Thank you to everyone who reads, listens, and keeps showing up here. The support matters more than you probably know.

I just dropped a brand-new long-form poetry reading on my YouTube channel raw, unfiltered, and straight from the same place these poems come from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?vJD_4EDxtGWU

If the work resonates, my books are available on Amazon.
Appreciate you all.
Thomas W. Case

Reviews

[BuzzyB]

We fall and we rise. As painful the falling, as blissful the rising. Thomas, the imagery you've used to describe the ups and downs is very stunning here. I especially loved the spiders of anxiety. They run all over us, sometimes. The conclusion took me to a place within me full of a golden warmth. Yes, write as is your life depends on it...It's all we really have.

[Thomas W Case]

Much appreciated.

[ThisSiteSucks]

Ink and Blood
Gosh what a title!

[ThisSiteSucks]

Thomas, your writes resonate disfunction, hopelessness, hellbound chaos...But there is that one speck always containing that last breath. I ordered Sleep Always Calls and SeedyTown Blues...oh and cashews to munch as I read. I also ordered a DVD player so I can finish watching Barfly. My player went obsolete right in the middle of it last year!
You're a great writer, my friend.

[Thomas W Case]

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You should check out Factotum too. Great movie...based on the book by Bukowski.

[ThisSiteSucks]

I watched the trailer. It looks good! Thanks!

[Thomas W Case]

yep...no problem

[ThisSiteSucks]

I always wondered how to pronounce Chinaski...Now I know