I made a promise to myself, and now it's been broken.
Old habits die hard, especially when unspoken.

No one needed to know.
Some scars aren't meant to show.

I kept it to myself, tucked away but not forgotten, buried beneath the thoughts that a decade ago turned rotten.

It was a lie when I made it, though I struggled for it to become reality.

I fought for two years, through all the fears and all the tears.
I wouldn't let the truth echo through my ears.

But the truth doesn't echo, it trickles and oozes.

I cut the ties that I kept to it like a blade through meat.
I guess some things aren't meant to be beat.

I go to work, high and hungover.
Shuffling feet leave a trail to the coffee ***, sleep shaking off with every step.

I drunkenly stumble through my night, redundancy oozing out of every pore, mixing with the *** soaked sweat that trickles down my face.

Purgatory exists inside of me; its numbing gray swallowing up everything in my field of vision & permeating my thoughts.

Creeping. Crawling. Consuming.

The Golden Years are rusting under my fingertips, and I stand idly by, watching it happen.

I trip over myself so hard that the walls are always melting.

My stress fueled heartbeat echoes in my ears so loudly that I fear the heavens will shatter.

In a room full of friends and familiar faces I sit quietly; I feel like a stranger with no voice.
The day they taught us not to take it personally? I guess I skipped it.

My breaths come and go as the seconds morph to minutes, muted by the pounding in my ears.

Clenched fists boil the blood I taste from biting my tongue as the words I crave to utter shatter off the back of my teeth.

Just tell them
your poetry
is now for
someone else.