Blemishes on petaled thoughts,
Shadowed whispers press my eyes,
Balancing my expectations
In a poppy field of denial.
Is fate really the inevitable gamble -
Or am I just a thought -
   floating in the ripples of uncertainty.

I’m so tired of who I am,
This isn’t how my life should  be,
The man I feared becoming has finally become  me,
The woman that took my breath away,
Now makes me hold my breath in terror,
I don’t think I can carry on,
If this is my forever.

I have a darkness,
A quiet stealthy darkness,
That resides in the cracks of my soul.
Effortlessly it laces my dreams with its twisted whispers,
It takes sustenance from my values and sharpens it’s teeth on my faith.
Little by little I tempt it out when the world displeases me,
Almost threatening to unleash it as my righteous damnation,
But to free my darkness would be to lose myself,
And I’m not sure I would ever comeback.
So we dance this sickly jig in the shadows of my mind.
Toying with the temptation of power,
Often you can hear me mutter to myself,
Mumbling in a trance,
Reliving what’s happened only this time letting my darkness form the reply,
If you listen closely you will hear the hatred dripping from my lips with every word,
The blackness burning behind my eyes,
Seeing the wrong in everything around me,
My mind fills with grotesque manifestations of torture and demise,
Blood dripping from my gnarled fingers,
The very earth beneath my feet scorched in disgust.
This is when my darkness finds its place,
Comes alive,
Makes me feel more than I’ve ever felt,
Makes me yearn for death and destruction,
It’s intoxicating,
I want to let it course through my veins and consume me,
The temptation becomes almost unbearable,
Until something jerks me back to reality,
A question,
A voice .....
Are you okay, you were mumbling ?

Am I ok ......
I don’t know,
Am I,
The darkness retracts,
Replaced by an emptiness.
Feelings instead of the fight,
And I’m always left with the same thought,
Am I really holding in the darkness,
Or is it the darkness that’s holding in me ?

I never knew I needed you,
And now I’m lost
without you..

My envy is racked with guilt,
Because it’s you that’s suffers,
But me that feels the pain.
In your mind everything is as it should be,
You have no idea of the reality you live in.
As the drool hangs from your chin,
You feel nothing but happiness,
Your body slowly tires and fails,
Yet you relive your fondest memories,
Your happiest times,
All the while I hurt,
I love you,
I do,
But I sit and stare at you -
Hour after hour,
Envious at the paradise you’ve escaped to,
Hating myself for feeling this jealousy,
Blaming you for the loss of the life I had.
As my hours turn to days,
Weeks turn to months.
Feeding you,
Bathing you,
Hating you,
Loving you,
Missing you,
Wanting you,
I wear the guilt of my selfishness,
Like sunburned skin.
Wishing at times you would finally go,
Dreading the day you leave,
When they first told me you had dementia,
I knew it was only a matter of time,
But I never knew the true cost of its toll.
I tell myself that it must be part of the balance,
That we are tipping the scales back for all the wonders that we’ve lived,
Otherwise I couldn’t justify this existence.
I’m glad you’ll never get to read these words,
Not that you’d remember them if you did,
Because no matter how I feel,
I will gladly pay the price for all your wonders,
Because i love you,
And in some small way,
I know it could be me one day.

I fear my thoughts are mere illusions,
Confusions,
Someone else’s conclusions.

Count your blessings,
Say a prayer,
Spit out one and all,
Your one of the survivors where so many others fall.