I never understood the draw of taking life
from your body, believing only one of strife
would obtain the sudden urge to rip and tear the skin
and release from within, demons out,
out from sullied flesh and faded eyes.

To my surprise however it came not from anguish but from quiet.
Steady monotonous quiet that roars in the ears of the forgotten,
thundering its swaddled mallets against the drums of silence
that echo, and echo, and echo.

Pace does not fix and time is lost in the wake of ever steady steps
striking the same ground
in the same pattern
at the same time of every single day which repeats on into forever.
And the rhythm once soothing becomes feverish, ferocious and foaming,
clawing with smooth tendrils through every corner
until the brain hazes over in shades of grey.

And it would be in this cold quiet that one would obtain true pain,
cutting evermore sharply than the knife did flesh
as simultaneously the fragments of rebellious thought seek release through a ruby vibrance.

I never understood the draw of taking life
from your body, believing only one of strife
would obtain the sudden urge to rip and tear the skin
and release from within, demons out.

I was wrong.