Garden in the Dark

When I bury my own needs and my own feelings to try to keep the peace between us I am left feeling like a ghost. I struggle with self-loathing. I feel like a vampire, with hunger I dare not speak of, vanishing in the mirror. Unheard and unspeaking.

Garden in the Dark

Trying to survive

This chemical reprise

Into the waiting fire

Of self-immolation

I've been underseas

Struggling to believe

That I could just breathe

For the both of us

Buried appetites

No need to speak my piece

Shut off all the lights

And just keep the peace

I'm desperately inadequate

Plague devoured guts

Disappear in mirrors

A worm upon my tongue

Out on eggshells walking

Hoping you will see

All the torches lit

To guide you back to me

Worst enemy to myself

So I need not be yours

Just trying to tend to this

Like a garden in the dark

A puzzle that requires both

Yet you're guarding pieces

A picture of a greater love

Is ours if we do the reaching

I'm not sure you know

How it effects me

How it wrecks me

Racking up

How lost I feel when

Silence strikes your lips

I wander from your grip

How I long to sail again

Instead we run aground

And we are lost

And I am left eaten, alive

By my self

I wonder when will my needs be met? When will my voice be heard? When will that conversation truly happen?

I try to be the voice of compassion and fairness and love and reason. I don't want to lose you. Communication is so much harder when you won't let me in. You are my garden in the dark.

Photo by Amir Esrafili: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-woman-in-black-pants-and-a-top-standing-in-a-field-15183864/