Friday, May 27, 2016

A Cold, Dead Place - 05/27/16

When all is said and done
what have I become

but a fragment of a human soul,
hardly indispensable,
hardly irreplaceable,
hardly unforgettable,
a shadow cast upon this world
by a glory unimaginable,
it left me shattered in this hole
with no hope of being fixed or whole.

I'm falling,
I'm kneeling,
reaching for stars on the ceiling,
screaming,

"Remember when I used to write?
Put pen to paper
and let words take flight?
Let worlds take flight,
bring worlds to life?"

But now I all have are funeral rites,
cascading chamomile trips through endless nights,
an exhausted homily
in eerie harmony,
begging to be set free from me,
be gone from me,
released from me
and this excessive misery
and the melodrama surrounding
every failed attempt at healing.

In each quiet moment,
these violent thoughts return,
berating:

"All you do is burn.
When are you gonna learn
that there is nothing in this world
undamaged by your flame,
no one who will be the same,
no memories left unchanged?
All you do is burn."

Tell me how to heal
and I will do it.
How many times
must I insist that
I am not a cold, dead place
before I believe it?
How many lines
must I erase
until I no longer
feel the guilt
of their creation?
Is there any penance
I could pay
to drive
the catastrophic thoughts away?
Is there any amount
of self sacrifice
that would suffice
to end this repetitive annihilation,
these oscillations
between "almost okay" and this?
I have tried to find
a villain I could blame this on,
a monster I could pin this on,
an enemy beyond my mind
that I could fight



but the only one out here trying to kill me
is me



and I have spent too much energy
tearing at my own flesh
and hating my own head
and destroying myself endlessly
and all it's gotten me
are scars
and fading Sharpie stars
where I have to see
and remember
exactly
how I betrayed me.

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