It's starting again.

I can feel the emptiness nestling in my joints.

With each drop in temperature, the
evils begin spiraling inside
of my mind as I fall
to the hounds.

I don't care. I don't blink.
It has no effect on me
anymore.

In my mind, I am smoking away
the tears and choking fears. Wispy tendrils of
heather gray caress my thin, chapped
lips with love. I am wearing
leather and black and there are
silver knuckles
gracing my lily white skin, marred
only by my ******, bitten nails and
your ink. I am
embracing
the demons, letting them drive
me away on chrome plated chariots, just
to get away, to run faster than God
itself, to the end -
the finish line -
they can't catch me;
they won't catch me yet,
not today.

In reality, I am buried
by layers of fat and years of secrets. I am
nothing but easily forgotten, and I
breathe in the esse of other lives, as if
they can save me or take hold, can grab
me tight, can pull my head high above suffocating
midnight waves. I am an
actor only by the smiles that convince me of a performance
well done. I am a liar, a
**** good one.

I'm not even excited for Christmas.
The tree, the lights, the frosty
air does nothing to arouse a festive
spirit or a hopeful mood. This is my only tell.
I have never lost
this one hope, this sole
light. Never have I lost
all - just you, though that has
always felt like a loss
larger than life.

"**** it all," I whisper.
Because no one cares, and we
are a selfish race. We are self-
absorbed, drowning in our own sorrows, and
clinging to desperate attempts of connecting.

It's starting again, and this time, I can
taste it on my tongue. Bitter, copper, heavy and
foul. Perhaps, if I believed in salvation, I
could afford
hope. For now, though, hope is an
empty bottle of water in the Sahara, and it is
foreign and massive and dark and looming.

Eating me alive.