I've woken up haunted by the ghosts of my own demons.
An ominous presence lurks just outside the edges of my peripheral vision.
The impending chaos hovers over my head like an untapped thunder cloud.
The fragile calm inside my head is eerily similar to an abandoned hospital.
Each room holding the possibility of a new fear,
Threatening to burst forth like a jack-in-the-box.
I know I've arrived.
There's no direction, no forks left in this road.
I must move forward.
My next step will take me right off the edge of this cliff.
I can't see the bottom, but somehow know that once I reach it, I'll survive.
The forces holding me back are the vacuum of a vortex.
******* with all their might,
pulling me back to the past.
That past.
That déjà vu.
That endless pulse of a lifeless cycle.
Just one step.
Inches!
I will myself to move,
Paralyzed in my current existence.
The nightmare is a lie,  
I am awake.
This is the lull,
This is the calm before the storm.

She is breaking.
There's a void in her tracks
and no light ahead.
The conflict between love lust and love lost
is waging it's war on her fleshy shores.
She can't seem to choose a side,
it all looks the same.
"It's a trap" she chokes.

She is freezing.
Her frigid heart is icing over
and her brain is going numb.
A vicious cycle of meandering
through brackish monotony -
looking for a map -
leads to where it all began.
Repeat.
"Nothing changes" she sighs.

She is vanishing.
Whispered honesties go unheard
amidst the cacophony of cross talk
and empty words.
Her absence goes unnoticed
as a silvery ghost of her
robotically relives her daily deeds.
"Anchored in reality" silently.

She is caving.
Breaking down like glass in a relentless tide,
Little pieces of her
are left to join the countless sand.
She's finding there's no escape
from this earthly purgatory
for the damaged and ******.
"There has to be more than this."

Absent body, absent form.
Absent absolutely,
As if you were ne'er born.

Absent voice, absent deeds.
Absent frames,
Of histories ne'er seen.

Absent opinion, absent feeling.
Absent choice,
There's nothing left to be.

Absent, me.

Silently, "I need to tell you something."
I approach. Falter, walk away.

I need to break this bond I have with silence,
This unhealthy affair I have with solitude.

I haven't even the energy to pull the words up from my stomach.
I heave,
Retching out nothing but bile and air.

I have so many things to say,
Passing fruitlessly through the space between my ears.

Speaking of space, that seams to be where I exist.
It's either that, or this is Purgatory.

Hell.
Too much conscience to be clinically depressed,
Too far gone to be "normal",
Nothingness.

"This is what it feels like to be a ghost."
To no one, again.

Lest you find yourself amongst the bones,
Mask your face and quiet your soul.

Flock in lines of the mundane and meek,
Zip your lips, peacful keep.

This genocide of individuality is perverting our kind, incestually.
Perfect patterns, mechanically, processed, soundly.

The flawed are pushed aside,
The individuals are boxed up, shipped out, Pariahs.

So, don your masks, one and all!
Suit up, and watch your sheeple fall.

Oh, Tepid Girl!
You insipid fool,
Beware your step!
Your bank-less waters,
Brackish, deep.
Keep your head
above the break, girl!
You're gonna sink.
You're neither here
Nor there, girl!
Can't go back,
Stuck, stand still.

Oh, paint your face girl
It doesn't change,
Face the light!
You aren't beauty,
You're that grey area,
In between,
Smart but mute, girl.
Blinders on,
Hackles drawn,
You're neither hot
Nor cold, girl.
Can't hang on,
Quick, patch up.

Oh, Tepid Girl!
You insipid fool,
You burned yourself.
On Monotony,
So Robotically!
Tragically,
Girl.

Led by delusion in blinders,
Stilled by shackles on my hands and silenced with a *******.
This life is lived locked on the wrong side of the bullet proof glass.
Half truths are the only truth.
Every coin, every story, has only one side.
The path before, and for miles behind me, is filled with glass and burning coals.
My mind is free, but what point does it serve?
My auto biography is a lie, redacted by the masters of the universe.
This is my world.
This catatonic existence is self made.