Maybe I’m addicted to the pain of waking up,
having the light burn my eyes after so many hours of darkness
where I find a home each night in the emptiness of a bed
I share with memories of the lives I’ve wasted to get where I am now.
What I could have been by now had I not ****** up so many times,
a doctor curing people with medicine, a writer curing people with words,
a teacher curing people with knowledge, a politician.
Here I sit with loneliness by my side as I think
of all the things I could have been and the time I spent dreaming.
A woman by my side, good as gold, heart of light,
a mind curated by the wisest of voices, all I need right now,
the only thing I dream of these days when everything else has gone,
reduced to rubble by the heavy-footed nature of time unforgiving.
The worst of it is that I know there will be worse to come
and I don’t know if I am strong enough to face it all on my own.