She keeps this beast  
Locked inside,  
Feeding it wine
To settle it down.  
When you look at her,  
She looks like she has it  
All together.  
But nobody really knows
What it's like.  
To stay up half the night,  
Clawed from the inside out.
It terrifies her.
Most days she doesn't say a word
And keeps to herself.
To the one she loves,  
If she reveals those pieces  
Of herself,  
Will you stay? Will you go?  
Like everything else that  
She’s lost.
She drinks to keep herself at peace,  
To keep the beast
from growling too loud.  
And for a minute, she forgets about  
Those broken pieces that didn’t  
Heal quite right.
That it's okay to breathe.
Even if it's for a minute.

If you’re reading this,  
She’s afraid  
To let you in.  
That once you’re in,  
You’ll smell those rotten parts  
That hide behind her eyes,
Or that you’ll hear the toenails screech  
Of the beast she keeps subdued,  
That you’ll realize it’s not  
A beast at all.
It’s the part of her that realizes  
The possibility that you cannot  
Love her, without loving the beast.
Those not so good pieces of herself.
Those frazzled insecure pieces
That despite everything she cannot
Control.
And in the end,  
She’ll regret it all if you turn around
And walk away.
No matter how strong the cage.
One of those bars loosens
Everytime she stares at you

Have I, perchance, metamorphosed into a devil?
Or do I wade in the slow currents of transformation, inching towards such darkness?
This change of my soul haunts me, casts doubt upon my existence as a being of flesh and bone.
For within, I sense no pain, no guilt, nor remorse,
When my tongue wields daggers of impudence, my words crude and abusive.
Verily, I long for these mortal shells to retreat from my presence,
To keep their distance as one would from a plague.
Is this the aftermath, then, of betrayal, a betrayal wrought by hands I once trusted?
This world, inhabited by insolent beings, claims existence as complex and full of agony.
Yet, how cunning are they, to hide their sins,
Masking the slaughter of innocence in souls beneath the veil of life’s curse,
And adorning their graveyards by weaving tales of love and tragedy in the deepest crimson ink.
Numbness enshrouds my entire flesh,
And I long for the piercing wail of these desensitizing emotions to tear my chest,
Even at the cost of my annihilation.
For I do not wish to be alive anymore because life has forsaken me eons ago.
I am now cursed, my neck bound by the serpent of coldness, its venom coursing through my veins.
Blisters mar my fingertips, and the bones of my spine ache as I hunch over my weathered quill,
Penning countless verses
In search of the tattered shreds of my sanity amid commas and colons that may yet remain within.
But each prose’s end becomes a question, inquiring the purpose of my continued breath,
Punctuating my verse with a query rather than an end.
How shameless of me to craft fireworks of art from the agony inflicted by these mortals!
Oh, I beseech the heavens for the liberation of my soul from this earthly vessel,
To journey far from this realm of demons disguised as men.

Teach your demons how
To speak, and let them write your
Poems for themselves.

I run from end to end,
chased away at every bend;
I fall and I falter
and for my faults I alter
my self...

it is their say that decides,
whether a monster resides
in my soul...

A soul that is played
For my innocence is slayed--
they laugh at their profanity,
the ***** dogs, the *******;
the masterminds behind my insanity...

...

Mind is roaming like a pariah dog
in some dusty lanes and lonely paths,
Sleeping on debris, regaling in waste and dirt.
I was its master once
But has lost the control now,
Time ahead looks bleak with
the equation reversing slowly
When I see me trembling before his bark.

It only took a few days for you to seep into my mind and reside in the darkest parts.
But once I knew you were there, I didn't try to rid of you.
No, you gave yourself to me and I accepted you with open arms and an empty stomach.

Like a parasite you ****** the life out of me.
You wore me down to where I napped three times a day.
My stomach never satisfied; either empty or stuffed.
My period stopped for five months.
Stomach pains worse than any pain I’ve experienced before.
Living in a constant fear that my stomach acid would burn a hole through my esophagus.

But you didn’t let any of these ailments stop us.
You taught me to embrace them, they needed to happen.
You convinced me to enjoy the pain I inflicted to myself.
Just collateral damage to the ultimate goal of thinness.
You pushed me so far deep inside my head, I was separated from the shell of my body.
I couldn't recognize myself, I deserved to be nobody.
But I didn’t know that then, you told me that was exactly who I was supposed to be, the real me.

And I believed you.

I try to tell myself everything I do is not for you
My life it revolves
The sun the stars the moon
I stand before the mirror trying to see myself clearer
Tears morph my body’s shape
Blurred like spilled paint
I whisper, “I hate you” as I stare at my face
I can’t breathe, so faster I try
Lightheaded vision, gagging, wanting to die
But the most I do is cry.

I drift lonely, lonely for you
You’re my depression, you’re my muse
Self hatred claims my compass,
So I follow it into the forest
And loathe your loving,
It infects me like fungus
Now I’m lost and scared
Inside my brain, you inject your lethal stain
I follow you on your path of wonder till I collapse
Exhaustion, pain, death, relapse

I idolize you and your flaws
How you seem so free
While around me forms a mist of misery
A clouded conscious with what I made you my life
Now I hate everything that I am,
And nothing’s right
Unmotivated, unsure
I allow you to engulf me; careless for a cure
I know what I’m doing but I don’t know who I am
Still on my knees I pray to you,
The blood slain of my own lamb.
My addiction to your presence has forced me to beg for more
I don’t know why I can’t end this war.