lament

xxii

matters i used to label "suffering" are mere illusions and i've put myself under their spell for too long.

remembering everything that came out of my mouth,
of the false troubles i've shared with people actually going through it,
this state induced by a desire for attention and identity,
and to be acknowledged as a being i am not.

failing to grasp my role and its importance in life,
tunnel vision due to pettiness that stemmed from the hideous desire to own something,
to have a story for my crimes and a reason for offenses,
to think myself higher than i was meant to be
due to the fact i acknowledged my lowliness yet persevered to prove it wrong.

hurting myself then handling the pain,
seeking to change then cursing the wind.
if only i'd stayed in the little world i was meant for and was meant for me,
if only i had no ambitions and no desires,
then all these mistakes would have never come to exist in a world i know i will continue to live in

as i'm not allowed to die.

my face is covered in layers of lies,
yet in the night they peel as i watch a movie of the things i've said and done,
and i wish to never have tomorrow come,
knowing the exhaustion of maintaining the illusion i'd fed to those i knew.
afraid of life and seeking peace, yet tolerating pain was never my strong suit.

loathsome and far from respectable,
if only they knew,
if only they knew.

i want to be kind now, want to be better
but my roots ultimately catch up to me,
to allow me to build connections but not without embellishments,
to allow me to remain the way i've always been when i wish to be rid these remnants that seem to have stubbornly clung to my skin like the blood, from all the sacrifices i've offered to feed the ego that consumed.

i know now that i have sinned,
and i have always known, but now more than ever,
and i know that i will continue to sin unless i am able to turn back time,
to wash my shame and drink from the fountain of repentance and forgetting.

i don't want to be perceived,
to be persecuted,
to be permanently etched into other people the way i wanted them to think of me.
the lives and souls i've thrown as kindling so my fire can keep burning,
to continue to warm me,
to continue to stuff myself full of delicious meals whilst i claimed to be eating sand in front of the starved,
they scream.

they want their dignity back.
they want me to stay awake and think of them,
to think of the times i thought i was important when clearly,
someone else was.

i hate myself.

not for the reasons one might think of on the fly,
but because i have woken up from the hypnosis i put myself under,
and now that i replay everything that i've recorded

i feel nothing but shame and the clawing desire to rid the world of myself for its sake, and for my sake, so i no longer have to deal with the pain that comes with watching movies created by others.

i have no more words to express this.

i want to seek help, yet i know i no longer have the right to, for all the people whom i never looked at just because i was absorbed in my own little show.

it burns.