Anguish

I built up

thick walls for my protection

and poked out small holes

to prod away at others.

-

I constructed a lifestyle

removed from all risk,

cocooned myself in so-called safety

but forgot to let the air in, to breathe.

-

I got everything I lusted after

just to take it all

for granted,

dying inside when it was all retracted

as if it wasn’t me who chose to discard it.

-

I was loved through my mistakes,

but made a point never to accept it,

removing myself to a wretched bubble,

an echo chamber of venomous hate.

-

I fuelled myself with anger

hatred in my blood,

my own Orlok’s curse,

a plague, pointing the finger at every external atom

citing you as the source

for all of my pains

when it was me who held them

so tightly to my chest.

-

I forgave everything

except for myself

carving out gashes in my stomach

to make my anguish last.

-

The life jacket you offered

I tossed aside, choosing to swim

in murky waters populated

by sea creatures with bloodlust.

-

Falling into the water, beneath

the sunshine of your love,

my body became cold,

then rigid,

then still.

-

I’d do it the same way again,

having learned nothing,

prioritising pride over love,

ready to die.

-

Thinking myself a martyr

instead of just a fool,

because I was only ever committed to

the easiest thing to do.

-

Freed from the burden of

all of my weight,

the water would sigh

and the monsters would dissipate.

-

You, still above,

would mourn my loss briefly

but soon be satisfied

by the fruits of real life

instead of my

self-induced pains.

-

I hold up the knife

but grabbed it by the blade,

never setting my hand right,

happy with the mess that I had made.

-

With no guidance or role models,

dangerous, capricious decisions

were far too easy to make.

-

I wallow in my pit,

in the cell that I created,

addicted to the feeling —

the familiar anguish, comforting though cold.