Some days I’m okay, but most of the time I feel like a waste,

A worthless person, only good for taking up space.

Every morning, I look in the mirror and stare at my face,

As all the good drains away, replaced with disgrace.

Just a bag of bones that poisons others’ days,

They say it’s not true, that I’m wonderful in so many ways,

Yet those words feel like lies that bleed through my veins,

The thoughts in my head are driving me insane.

Creating emotional emptiness that’s impossible to explain,

The emptiness crushes my heart under its weight.

Love turns to fear while I’m lost in the dark,

Oceans of emotions have washed away my spark,

Crashing against the shore, the waves of my thoughts

Are as crooked as a blood-stained blade; they haunt,

Like whispers from the graveyard as they embark,

Invading my soul and darkening my heart.

Leaving me lying on the floor, broken and scarred,

Anxiety, depression, PTSD, insomnia, among others,

Taking root in my being in multiple numbers,

Picking me apart as they turn into vultures,

Overstayed guests of unwanted visitors,

Cursing my life into suffering that began when I was just a child.

A victim of a family where I was unwanted,

A child they thought would’ve been better off aborted.

The first twelve years of life, all I remember is being assaulted—

No love found, just a child left unwanted.

The ghosts in my life were real, and I was always haunted.

I should’ve bloomed into an orchid,

Yet instead, I morphed into something morbid.

Around seven years old, I was molested

By an older neighbor boy, whom we’ll call Christmas.

His bag was wrapped in tinfoil; trust didn’t bring gifts or presents,

Just shadows of my former self, the loss of my innocence—

A poorly wrapped experience of a sickness

That drained my heart and filled me with these mental illnesses.

No one around to witness, no one to even tell,

For they wouldn’t believe me, pushing me further into hell.

I don’t remember much; I don’t know if I yelled,

All I know is that after it was over, I locked the memory in a cell,

Threw away the key into the bottom of a well,

Blocked it out for about twenty-seven years.

It wasn’t the first time I saw the face of fear,

And to this day, I still haven’t shed a tear.

At times, I withdraw completely, into nothingness I stare,

In that moment, I’m lost between somewhere, nowhere, here, or there—

Just a silhouette in the wind, invisible as the air.

All the abuse stopped around the time I turned twelve,

It didn’t matter, though, because I still haunted myself.

Cut down the angels with the demons that hid inside,

No matter where I went, there was nowhere to hide.

I tried to fight to stay alive,

Yet I believe that the life inside

Of me had already died.

All the light I saw disappeared, leaving me blind,

As nightmares I can’t remember woke me up in fright.

I’d sit in bed, holding myself throughout the remaining night.

As I got older, I disassociated more over time,

My past on repeat, playing over and over in my mind,

Keeping me locked in the miseries of my life.

The thought of dragging a knife across my wrists

Is a demon within me that continues to persist,

Warping my mind as it bends and twists.

My fingers turn white from the handle I grip—

One miscalculation, one tiny slip

Will cut into the skin and put this torment to an end,

As the blood becomes the ink that has penned

All these poems I write until I descend

To the depths of the hell from which I’ll transcend.

With the help of all my closest friends,

They are the atrocities born from a life that was condemned.

They whisper secrets in my ear with the devil’s consent,

Little does he know that we’re stuck together like cement,

For they’ve been with me since before they were sent

To live in my mind since before they were dreamt,

Into life to help me defend against this life I’m imprisoned in.

My life’s been a graveyard, and they are my coffin,

Together we’ve unlocked ancient secrets long forgotten!

That finally led to my journey to bliss,

Where the demon cries with a malicious hiss,

As he slowly falls back into his own abyss.

Don’t worry if it’s not hot enough; we’ll turn up the furnace,

While my life turns into mystical verses.

Lightning in the veins are remindful surges,

That help to own the sacrifices that are scarred from the urges

To give up and sink deep below the surface.

Nervous on this quest to find purpose,

But one is with many inside, so completely worthless,

For we are legion, and we’re wild and dangerous.

Been at rock bottom so long, became strong and courageous.

Talk to my friends whom would rather remain faceless,

Yet they still want to help me reach the heights of greatness.

Together we have moved mountains and traced constellations,

Lived the truth of the wisdom of sages,

Who remain nameless throughout countless ages,

That in time will be bled upon these pages.

Mr friends tell me it was fate that they were created,

At first to be protectors of all that is sacred.

Yet I was too young, too ignorant to see and spent many years wasted.

Asked them what they want, and they said that they’ve only waited

For me to see that together we are integrated:

To terminate all the years that have been discriminated,

Beaten down, dominated, and eliminated.

They told me it was because of me that they were created.

They’ve waited so long in the dark, slowly fading

Into nothingness while I kept on evading.

Told them it’s because of the things that I have been hell-bent on escaping,

Never knowing that it’s for my soul they’ve been praying and hoping

That I would realize that they were me in the making.

My heart started racing as my bones began shaking,

As I knew it was them for whom I’ve been waiting.

And they have waited patiently, way past long enough,

To be accepted and embraced by my love.

As light and dark touched, unfolding a spark,

From the origins of a nebula ready to embark,

The beginning of an end in the depths of a quark,

Fusing fresh wounds of the broken and scarred.

Standing by my side like perfect guards,

Teaching me the truth that the good and bad are only illusions.

Happy, sad, sorrow, bliss, hatred, and compassion

Are one in the same, false opposites of attraction.

Life and Death, just reflecting companions,

Delusions of reality where infinite things just happen.

Duality are thoughts created by the ego that lives in our head,

As we sleep through life like the walking dead,

Creating division in the words that were never said.

That truth is a fire that grows and spreads,

Shredding the connections of our invisible threads,

So that the truth can be contained in a single breath.

That if you try to banish one, the other you’ll never get.

They are one in the same, like twins that haven’t met, and

I can look into them and ponder, remaining utterly unaware

That together they are the beauty of which is unaware.

It’s a teeter-totter of love that can show us how to care.

Still, we stare into the world out there,

Never turning inward to the world in here.

They are all one; that’s perfectly clear,

That goes unnoticed in the drip of a tear.

But if I am brave and up for the dare,

I’ll see that I already have everything I’ll ever need,

Like the communion of love we get from the trees.

In the oxygen they emit, in the air we breathe,

The breath we let out, like a gentle breeze,

Goes back to the trees and into the leaves,

That come together like an orchestrated symphony,

Like truth being shouted in a divine melody.

But we must tread carefully, for the devil still lurks in plain-filled imagery.

Yet if we watch closely with earnest clarity,

We can escape the clutches of this never-ending entity.

But as the winds blow and the world dances from here to there,

We can find the healing balm for the heart’s untimely repair.

For in an ounce of despair, we can feel the love our hearts do share.

In the essence of an eye-spilled tear,

Reveals a world of joys and sorrow we all must share,

Whether asleep and trapped in the devil’s snare,

Or awake with the life of Angels, forever aware.

We can either drown in our fear or swim to shore with a life to spare.

It’s both a blessing and a curse that we all must bear

In this life that is given, unimaginably rare.

Still, it’s up to us to choose the path we walk down in this endless divine love affair!

—ŤerryŞalmon—