thoughts swirling like
lapping water on the
shore, memories
flashing like lightning
there's so much
I want to tell you.

Anxiety.
It eats you from the inside out.
It claws and tears its way through your ribs,
Like a staving hyena desperate for food.
It is chained inside with no way out.
Chains that drag you deep into the water.
Deep into a dark void.
A void that is suffocating,
Forming a lump in your throat
Like hands wrapped around your neck.
A lump that strangles you,
And holds you down.
Causing the inability to know up from down.
It’s the monster lurking in the abyss
Grabbing you to make you one of your own.

As we sit, take our seats in the banquet hall,
everyone rushes to be the first to feast,
while we’re left choking on the past.
Does no one hear the wind,
wailing against the stained glass?

Silver goblets raised in mock celebration,
filled with the essence that I poured.
Gleeful toasts echo against fractured stone,
laughter filling the banquet hall.
Does no one see the blood,
dripping down these chains?

A little too late,
they finally look around.
The stained glass has cracked,
its stories bleeding out onto the marble floor.
The drapes now hang in tatters,
lace left ripped in shreds.

Is this what you wanted?
The desecration of this citadel?

As walls begin to tremble,
pillars groan under the weight of decay,
no one stays to help.
They run.
Feet that once stood in reverence
trample the sacred,
careless, unburdened.

But I remain.

Veins of frost cover the walls,
the ceiling yawns open, snuffing out the light,
and I cannot move.
Not as the glimmering chandeliers fall,
not as the stone gives way beneath me,
not as the ruins cave in.

As the winter chill creeps in,
the dust now settles.
Within the silence
of these hallowed grounds,
the echoes of laughter now lost.

As I watch from beyond.

A ghost draped in apathy,
watching the remnants of me buried,
watching the last echoes of my warmth
fade into cold ash.
Wondering if I will ever
rise back from the ashes.

No hands reach
into the wreckage.
No voices
call my name.
No one mourns.
And maybe
they never will.

Don't cage me,
Don't chain me,
Don't try and change me,
I am the river,
I am free.

So you can't control me,
You can know me,
But you'll never own me.

I used to fly
Free as a bird
With no fear of falling

But now I am bound by chains
I have plunged into eternal captivity
Held prisoner by my own mind

I'm renouncing the pain I spoke over myself.
I'm renouncing the hatred I spoke into this family.
the hatred spoke into those of my past,
the Boy who made me realise I was filled with lust,
I am renouncing the words that I spoke and listened to that reduced and reduce my self esteem.
I am renewing my mind with The word.
I am renewing my mind with His love.
I am allowing Him to work through me.
I am forgetting the past, refusing to ponder on old history.
Please carry me through Lord, increase this capacity.
I am so used to ignoring my feelings that accepting them make me feel like I am  wrong.
So peace to my heart.
Joy to my mind.
Salvation to my soul.
The lord  in my spirit, He alone makes me whole.
Please teach me how to navigate and accept these feelings Lord, you gave them to me for a reason.