Sickness stalking like a predator
Prowling for food to eat
No matter how much prey is devoured
Still starving for more meat

Reverberating impulses echo
Cavern between each ear
Anxiety the strings attached to my limbs
Addiction expert puppeteer

It follows every place I wander
One or two steps behind
Tried so hard to shake it's grip
It seems our fates are intertwined

I don't know how the darknessentered
Must have slipped through small cracks long ago
Over years it's winded roots through my skeleton
I am afraid it will never let go

I sense the demons embedded in each cell
Molecules stamped with their names
Branded sin that never stops searing
Blistering soul with shame

Dependency my ball and chain
Tired of dragging it along
Despite best efforts to pick the locks
Shackles worn on wrists are too strong

This burden mine and mine alone
No one else can help me carry this weight
It becomes harder and harder to shuffle forward
Steps slowing at alarming rate

It appears dead ends are multiplying
Trapped inside cage constructed from my hurt
Worry that if I don't escape this hell
I'll be buried in a coffin deep in the dirt

I just want to be free of the shadows
Haunting halls of my head
Black silhouettes in peripheral
Monsters slumbering beside me in bed

Their tentacles wrap around judgement
Doubt fills every crevice in my brain
Can't tell if it's a temporary condition
Or I've gone completely insane

But paint a smile on my lips
In case onlookers ask how I feel
Under surface my heart is suffering
Chasing happiness in high that isn't real

Rings of Headrick
Stabilize the flight
Of a broken equal

In zero atmosphere
I record you remembering to smile
Pixel pleasure
Whether or not
In zip ties

Cloud on the brow
Rain in the ashtray
Storms we all breathe in heavily

An end to camaraderie
By critical distance
By counting back from ten

Zero is an even number
When discord is no longer odd

In this funny ol’ thing we call life,
the world is full of hatred and strife.
Wars are waged, and tears are shed,
at the very same time that people are wed.

We flick between channels of misery and hope,
turning our brains off just so we can cope.
“Why should we change? We only will suffer!”
Don’t think of the ones for whom it is rougher.

So much changes, but some things remain,
peace and joy will always come with pain.
‘What is a human?’ I begin to wonder,
as the rain pours down and it begins to thunder.

Perhaps we are destined to suffer alone,
but at the end of the day, we are just blood and bone.
We stand, balancing hope on the edge of a knife,
in this funny ol’ thing that we call life.