Reflection

[Ra****]

 

I may not look like a man who has stared into the blue ***shot eyes of evil,
but I have, and without flinching, and without knowing it changed me somehow.
I've seen *** turn into submission and hate become motivation, I have
looked at need and gave everything I had to it, then 
watched that generosity be turned against me as they greedily were reaching for more.

I'm not special, not to or for any purpose.
I am not anyone's first choice, not anyone's favorite person.
I've been told "you mean a lot to me"
while watching them choose someone else over me,
the *** is almost as sharp as the realization that I'll never be enough—
that no matter how much love I give or how hard I try,
I will always be an option, not a priority. 

I've loved and fought, won and lost. Hammered my way thru rock bottom, and been carried by the wind to the precipice. And, felt pride only to have my shadow celebrate my success. Standing alone at the top I've  jumped,
without anyone who cared enough to stop me, into the black loneliness of the abyss.
And I'm still falling.
But, it's here in this state of free fall that I have found peace—
the quiet whish of the wind drowning out
the sounds of ***, the screams of anger, the laughing ridicule 
and the endless onslaught of  thoughts I could never silence.

I can't see myself the same way I am seen, grotesque and disfigured. But
I see it in the way they look at others,
the way they choose them effortlessly.
I have been left alone on the battlefields of life, pretending it doesn't hurt,
not because I am unfeeling
but because I have never felt another way.

Self inflicted?

I tell myself I don't need validation to be enough, but deep down I own it, and the *** of regret is always there,
my steadfast companion. A silent reminder of the *** I have caused that time has yet to heal. I can not see the bottom, except in my memories of being there. I don't miss the top, no, I am comfortable in the failing, in the fall.

Yet I am not deceived—
I know this calm ease I seem to be experiencing
will end, and end violently.
No one truly ***s losing me.
I can disappear and life continues
unaffected by my absence.
I'm always a backup, forever a convenience, so I have chosen myself—whether born of desperate hope or childish needs,  when it feels like no one loves me,
I love myself.

In this world without a soul to confide in, I carry just the thoughts created by an ever-maddening mind.  Squared shoulders are not burdened by the weight in the decent. I'm no longer struggling 
trying to hold it together for myself
so I can give myself to a world
that doesn't seem to want me. No panic, no ***, and without hope
I fall through the darkness. Squinted eyes help shield the blinding brightness of
my own light,
my own unwavering presence
in the face of universal indifference.

For I am me,
I am an overcomer, and refuse to be judged. I have faced the worst of evils, and smile. I have been taught by struggle, and mentored by ***. A lesson, simply that
I am the keeper of my own worth
in a place that has forgotten how to see it.

Those blue ***shot eyes haunt me still—
Yes, I've stared at evil,
and what I am left to ponder now . . . What I stared upon, was it actually evil or was it a mirror?

 

sdp'26