Raw irony laces its high-top shoes and laughs at me with a cynical sneer. Dark dances are in my head - Others, so normal...all of them...not me. Not me, never me, is not me. Upon my back is a pack of sorrows. Secret wishes are scars that run up and down my arms from self-mutilation. Taught not mercy or kindness, yet they live within my being...sparing him. I can no longer sing - he crushed my throat. I hobble on a hip that will never heal. Buddha says, βAll life is sufferingβ. The injuries are well-known friends who come to visit; come to stay. But the thoughts inside my head - where no one can see...these worry me. He left me nothing, not even my innocent kindness, for I have killed him a hundred times in my mind...will **** him a hundred times a hundred - and he will not be dead, but I will have the stain on my humanity even after I know he is well and truly dead. I, the murderer of the heart.