Favoring night,
comfort in the darkness.
Been here so long,
its basically home.
Loneliness remains constant,
regardless of the hour.
At least at night,
the shadows are welcoming.
My retreat,
its all I've ever known.

I feel a presence nagging at me,
like a dull, constant ache,
only more.
Its almost as if there is a scared little child,
deep down, begging to escape the dark.
While this passenger tugs at my heartstrings,
everything blurs out of focus.
Struggling with keeping order,
my thoughts jumble chaotically.
Every once and awhile, though,
I find moments of clarity,
and those are the most precious moments of all.

In me, the pressure keeps rising,
despair prevalent, continuously building.
All the scars,
ripping back open.
Tearing my flesh,
Ripping me away,
grinding me down.
Are you happy now?
My heart is exhausted,
What will be my release?
Do you pull me up,
just to throw me down again?
Peel away my skin,
separate the meat from bone,
callously inflict everlasting pain.
Are you happy now?

Sometimes, I feel like a lump of coal
under all sorts of pressure.
The pressure intensifying,
continuously building up,
to where I doubt I can handle it.
While I desperately push forward
trying to adapt and survive,
I am weighed down by
chains of doubt and insecurity.
Oppressed in ******* by my own mind,
no exodus, no escape.
All those miles, conditioning I did
only to fall into a pit of darkness,
losing myself in the abyss.
Chained down, pressure equivalent to anvils
dragging me farther and farther,
I can barely see the light above,
only a fragile glimmer of hope left.
Nature has provided me tools
to fashion a ladder,
for there is no "quick fix" for escape.
You have to take one step at a time.
So while I feel like coal now,
maybe one day I can transform
and become a diamond.  
But, God, why must the
ladder seem so long?

Its funny,
how three little words,
can shatter my world.

As time goes on,
unforeseen things pop up,
and require our uttermost attention.
The little things,
they tend to fade into the background.
No wonder,
I can barely see myself now.

When observing people throughout history,
the big, gory details often stand out.
Not everyone dies extravagantly or suddenly.
Plenty of people face a slower fate.
They fall not by one swift strike of the sword,
but by a thousand paper cuts.
These cuts seem insignificant by themselves,
however together they become much more.
Constantly being oppressed,
Continuously getting beaten down,
Running into brick wall after brick wall,
Discouraged beyond recognition.