My life is like quicksand,
I continuously sink slowly,
Kick and drag myself up high enough just to gulp at air.
Then follows the slow descent.
I'm unsure of what's at the bottom
But my toes have tickled it a few times
Then the beast bellows and laughs,
Sending tsunami waves through the sand;
I roll like a ship about to be taken under by fierce swell.

Sometimes I think the quicksand is encased in my skull...
Sometimes I think the depths of the quicksand settle on the top of my spinal cord.
Sometimes I think I'm numb from the corrosive vibrations of the sludgy water-sand mix:
Jamming my nervous system, rusting it over.

But then the memory of pressure of your hand around my neck
Makes me forget the metaphor of the sand
And the make-believe depression.
And the blood in my nose, that drips and drys and repeats itself daily
Exists because you forced my head against the wall so many times.
Razors are not a comfort they are a fear and I still cough them up from my lungs.

I realise you are not terrifying
I realise that you do not own my life
You do not decide that I am real or fake or suffering.
I realise that you are only a scar
That I am slathering oils and remedies over
In order to make the red fade.
I realise that I am so *******
H A P P Y

One year on;
And I have overcome your disease,
Dislodged your putrid fangs,
Rebuilt myself,
Healed, cured myself...
Found a real person
Who knows how to love me
And teach me to love me.