Loneliness is a castle,
Built to keep me from blue skies,
Where coarse stone walls scrape delicate skin
And guard towers overhead loom menacingly.
Echoes of footsteps drift through the halls and
The salt of tears taps my tongue.
The taste of sky and clouds nearly forgotten –
Wings clipped and feathers painted with lead.

My heart hid itself away,
Put locks and chains on the dungeon door
To keep me safe in my solitude.
Except
The fortress of expectations
Crushes me,
Tries to break and extract every
Original thought and impulse, until
Resistance leaves me
Spent and alone.

Then comes the blizzard of false friends
Fiery and hellish in their approach.
I wield my sword and cut the
Words, words, words
That tear at my ears and pull out my hair
Until their syllables lay bleeding at
My feet, begging for mercy.

I brush the inky blood off,
But I don’t walk away unscathed.
The words seep
Into my dreams and
Wait
To grab my hope and strangle it.
I wrestle with the words
And lose myself inside them until I
See who they have made me in the mirror.