When I gazed
into the ceiling's abyss,
it revealed the monsters
I so foolishly embraced because
I loved, yet

lunch with my mother
is silent and
I search for words to
bridge the expanse of that diner table
as I drink this black coffee and think,
"I'd never feel this loneliness if I made her proud,"
but

my best friend said
I was a still life amongst Napoleon portraits and
I thought eloping wasn't crazy
because we belonged to
a dying breed of honesty, but
I was drunk on cognac and he was high
when we loudly proclaimed that this love ran deep.

(It was a mistake
I still feel even though
a year has passed since
he left without
a goodbye or explanation.)

Before him,
I loved a man who made me his marionette,
two years spent
being toyed and controlled,
and months regrowing my spine
after I severed strings,

And, still, before him,
my father died and
therapy told me,
"No one can hurt you like your parents did," but
despite their blood and bruises that I still carry,
it's 5 A.M. and
I'm thinking of the anarchist who told me,
"Empathy is a gift in our post-modern dystopian society."

Gazing at the abyss only reveals
that looking back at the monsters,
surviving and outsmarting them,
only leaves you lonely
because they will never feel.