How can I love when pain is all I fill?
Is this pain considerable like yours, or is it make believing, still?

What point is there? If love always hurts,
even a stranger can make me seem wanted, fill my hunger and thirst.

Should I give up? Continue on? Or just succumb?,
To a life of misery, love alluding me, love on the run?

The broken promises, the shattered lies,
a bitter lesson learned behind these eyes.
But in the wreckage, a small ember gleamed,
a different future than the one I'd dreamed.

I pieced myself together, strong and new,
a self-love that was honest, pure, and true.

No more running to and fro, stand up, chest out,
completely healed, yet love still eludes me, now pain is on the run. ©

Michael Powers
"STYXX ON FIRE"