I have been haunted these past few nights. Shadows of an uncertain future manifested before me, leaving me a prisoner to my mind.

Fears untold, kept in solitary. Their only company: the lonely echoes of a weary heart beating against its cage.

I daydream of smiles. Of days filled with light and laughter.

I dream of the alter and of you, there, waiting for me. To unite with a kiss; the promise of forever on our lips.

I dream of our home that we’ll build together; a refuge to hideaway from the rest of the world. A world in and of itself. Our world.

I want to conquer that world with you.

But it becomes overshadowed by those very fears that haunt me.
The fears that taint my dreams and rob me of my sleep. The shadows that have made a home underneath my eyes.

My tears begin to make their home there, too.

we cast our sins unto others
not noticing how we've long been bathing in a pool of our own mistakes.
the sins of my father
the sins of my mother
their sins are not mine, we say.
but how can we be so certain
when we are so blindly consumed with ego's seductive ways?

perhaps it is not another's grip around your neck.

perhaps, it is your own.

I wish I could sleep in peace
Lay my head down and put my mind at ease
But I count wolves instead of sheep
And remind myself of the demons I keep
Twisting and turning
Stomach churning
Questions burning
Anxiety relishes in my defeat

i have been starved of you.

i have not eaten in days
yet i am full--
of sadness
of longing
of grief
of pain.

i did not know that heartache could be so filling.

remember your anger.
hold onto it and weep.
let each tear that rolls down your cheek
serve as a reminder as a promise to keep.
if not for yourself now,
then for the vision of you later
when fate will be kinder
for all the wicked games it's leeched.

this heartache will not ruin you.
you are more than this.
in time you will stitch your wounds
though now they may bleed.

still your heart beats on, despite.

allow your anger to fuel you.
let its searing warmth radiate
for it is the scorned woman who will prevail
and he who will instead weep.

I am a sum.
A sum of tape and glue,
Stiches and staples.
Fragments of a whole,
Broken and unstable.

A prisoner to circumstance.
A victim of the cruel lash of reality.
A slave to couldves and shouldves.
Of dos and donts,
Of haves and have nots,
Of this verses that.

But
I am more.
More than his grip of silence
More than their shadows of doubt.
More than those who rebuked my defiance
More than he who dared to stifle my truth.

No longer a prisoner
No longer a slave
No longer a victim
But a bird free of her cage.