I was raised

On an apathetic platform

One that taught me

That happiness could be found

In the pockets of everyone around me

So now

With DNA wound tightly into a hangman's noose

I am hung nicely in the doorway between possession and consumption

It started small

Twitches and shallow breathing

And a fading memory of the things I had before that

And following this would be the endless repetition

Of forgetting to cut my nails

Before everyone I love

Could enjoy a sweet strike to the hearts

But recently

A new symptom has appeared

I can feel it

It's a wretched, mangled idea

Six feet underground

Being devoured by anything that can take a bite

And I can see it

Yeah

When the world becomes a black and blacker lens that I'm forced to peer through

I see its' claws penetrating everything

I see its' conquest desecrating a landscape that's neither

Up nor down

Left nor right

But just directly through me

Any weapon you can think of you'll find protruding from your most sensitive cavity

Any light that shines burns the receptors in your eyes until you wish to open them no longer

Its' intent, focused with tunnel vision

On the hopeless dwindling of silver

That once surrounded the edges of my senses

Its' jigsaw teeth

Rip the light from my eyes

And everyone else's

Throwing it into a pit

With no 'X' to mark it

And I dread the day I hear its

knock, knock, knock

On the edge of its womb

The one that just so happens to border

This calcium helmet

That shelters me from my reality

Because that'll be the day

That'll be the day

I'm the one that's trapped

I'm the one breaking free

I'm the one begging

And clawing

And screaming for my freedom

That'll be the day I become

The shadow I cast