[...the slight-of-hand in darkness]

10.07.2016

As I discuss or feel desire for life, for love,

For anything that makes my soul quiver.

I discredit it, as a foreign romantic delusion in my mind,

Like as if I was misreading slight-of-hand for a truthful act, or even a cure.

 

Vagueness, the indiscriminate greyness, quickly bubbles back up,

It surges through my muscles like shooting pains,

(But they are not of the growing kind),

It stops me, weighs on my sternum and makes it hard to feel:

Hope doesn’t have a chance here,

It hasn’t been taught how to be resilient.

 

My limbs fill with lead and indecision,

Immobilised by my own reluctance to move,

I remain remaining,

A toxic fire within me warms my bones,

It wants to seduce and use me, and engulf then discard me,

Like all the deep and dark things of myself eventually do.

 

For even the darkness survives on slight-of-hand,

It feels me up, suddenly and without my consent,

Yet it is comforting and secure,

Its hold leaves bruises, but “just to show it cares”.

And it feels real for that moment.

 

I confuse the pain for value, and its lies for my truth,

Because they all fit so nicely in this gap underneath my ribs.

Looking for meaning and marrow,

Crying for something to tie me to this body, to this existence.