The Visit

 

No fear, no pain, no sleep, no peace.

…

I open the wooden door for a long walk

But I hear the wolf’s howl, filled with sadness, an echo of loneliness.

I stand frozen, unable to move, touched by his emotions,

Only the dread is never meant to be felt.

My eyes are filling with tears, waves of grief flood every cell of me,

My forgotten memories come like lost movies black-and-white,

Ready to be seen, ready to remind me of the child I was.

The wolf comes near, a blurry shadow at the edge of the misty forest,

His songs are filled with hunger and regret,

Lone wolf – wandering the woods aimlessly, with no need to know where to go.

Scared, I close the door, putting a barrier between me and the approaching howl.

Yet mesmerized, I listen to what he tells me – a story heavy

– Only the fittest can survive.

He is coming closer – he needs a companion even for a minute or so.

His cries bring back the hidden insecurities, moments of my past

Entwined with the unnatural meeting we share.

He is the singer of this horrid song and I am the audience enchanted tone by tone.

My thoughts keep messing with me – so hopeless as if I never was at all.

And he sits in front of the door, mourning whatever he lost,

Roaring sounds shake me to the core – I sink deep into my feelings,

Consumed by powerlessness against the turmoil coming from his throat.

Enchanted, I go through every state of his being,

Emotional exhaustion and then he is gone.

…

The forest is now silent, just a flashback of a life once lived.

Only the faint reminiscence of the presence I felt.

My mind is now black, weary of the encounter I just had.

And on the threshold of my cabin, I still stand quietly

Engulfed by the warmth of who I am now -

No fear, no pain, no sleep, no peace.

The Song I Never Played

 

What would have happened if I had never stopped playing the piano?

Would my life have turned into a beautiful song heard across the world?

Would I still be so insecure about my compositions,

My lyrics forgotten on a hard drive?

What would have happened if I had said nothing and simply kept playing

The melodies inside my head – would I have become a true composer?

What if I had never failed that crucial math exam?

Would I have become fluent in German,

Moving to this country like I once dreamt?

What if I hadn’t backed down and tried to study Asian languages at university?

Would I have travelled across Asia like I always wanted?

What would have happened?

–  A question I have asked myself too many times

When regret feels larger than everything I have achieved so far.

…

But I chose poorly – the times were different, my worldview limited,

Unsure of what I could and couldn’t do…

So many wasted opportunities.

And now I try to make peace with those choices, never quite happy.

As a little child, scared of an angry adult, I quit music

– My first and biggest heartbreak.

I still mourn the lack of resources – small town problems.

Circumstances led to the exam failure, though it was never my greatest regret.

I still blame my younger self for never trying again to switch my major.

It was never the change of city I feared, only my ability to succeed.

…

And now I still ask the same questions, mostly out of habit, knowing it is too late.

My career no longer brings the joy I once had.

I lack creativity, I hate working with numbers.

The only glimmer of hope is the wordplay I have in the evenings when no one is watching

When I can safely break down in tears, tired of the small, stupid daily games I play.

And in the middle of the night, tucked in bed, I still wonder

What might have happened if I stayed with the piano

Instead of standing frozen among strangers in the dim concert hall

Letting others sing the life once I knew as mine.

For a couple of hours, I let my body feel the life that slipped past me.

And every weekend, like clockwork, I pour my heartbreaks into poems like this one,

Stubbornly, I try to keep the last fragment of my soul alive.

Somewhere between the vocals of the songs I listen to and the words I claim as mine,

A small, quiet part of me still refuses to fade away,

It keeps me breathing, something I hold onto.

Yet I drift without direction, unable to see my path ahead.

I never stop moving simply because another day arrives,

Though the life I have feels empty, unfamiliar -

Just another adult demand…

Inner Void

 

Shadows borrowed from another world -

Sunless days and moonless nights,

Left to suffer like some destined martyr

When all I need is a hug from a friend or a foe.

But the world is ruined -

No one walks beside me even into harm.

..

And now caged and broken I rot in the void

Like a monk forgotten in a temple on a mountain high.

My vision shattered, my ears deaf – senses numb just to keep me alive

I am no saint – just a normal human.

Hair matted, face covered in dirt – like a doll I wait on the shelf called life

Buried like a prisoner in the dungeon of my hollow mind.

Warmth has never appealed to me – I am colder than ice,

Winter storms in my heart.

That’s why isolated in the emptiness I stay

To cleanse my mind of the anger I feel among countless souls -

Empty shells.

My rage consumes me like a fire devours dry trees,

Spreading desert – natural disaster.

I am so undone, the answer is never given to me.

Like a rat trapped in a maze, I pace, anxious to escape,

Circling back to wrath – even the silence is not enough.

Vicious thoughts, yet an innocent face smiling, pretending to care.

…

From the depths of my ire I rise again,

My fury doesn’t scare me anymore,

I accept it as my second nature, another demon to tame

Like every sin I have trained to serve me.

I refuse to give up the dark parts of me just to fit into the world.

Disgrace might be my middle name, yet I embrace it.

I am not deceived by the false positivity everyone promotes.

I refuse to wash myself into the light as if horror doesn’t live inside me.

Tired of the molds, I refuse to obey – this is not my nature.

As a hurricane I rage, as a sun I soothe – the Duality I claim as mine.

The Thrill of Being Chased

 

Trigger warning!!! The hunt begins in imagination where fear and craving carefully dance. Some games are meant to stay unplayed.

....

I feel your presence behind me,

Danger fills my body,

I like our little game of cat and mouse in the dark forest,

Feeling scared is what makes me feel alive.

…

Through the lens of a dark romance reader

I explore what I hid so shamefully within my mind,

Always craving one particular hunt,

Forbidden fantasies, taboo attraction,

My inner fire burns my skin from the inside.

…

Your shadow lingers in the corner pitch-black,

My throat aches for the firmness of your grip,

I want the weakness to consume me,

I don’t want to feel safe.

With you it is so easy, always ready to play these games with me

And flirting with my demons – never bored, a constant thrill.

My nose recognizes you even when you follow at a distance,

Trying to keep it low, blending into the scenery, leaving no trace.

The stillness of your breath has mapped my spine,

Tattoo of a new kind, where every shiver is a prelude to pleasure,

Never – ending sweet pain.

I let the fear sink deeply into my bones,

Marks of possession, so well-known to me.

I walk through the empty alleys knowing you can catch me anytime,

While the safety of the forest holds our wickedness at bay.

…

You make your presence clear, your raspy voice telling me to run away

Your fiend cannot wait any longer, the cage not strong enough to contain it,

You and I – a game of predator and prey.

You caught me or I let you – we will keep it as it looks to untrained eyes.

The chase is over, time to unleash what we carefully hid,

And the night is our only witness as the game ends here,

Where our wickedness begins.

The Switch

 

And after all these years, today I allowed myself to feel all the pain, happiness, exhaustion and hopelessness. I’ve been numb for more than two years. I have mastered the art of looking cheerful and hopeful, masking the indifference with female rage, looking angry when something looks unfair. What scares me the most is that I mastered the art of using the “right” emotion when everything in me is barren. The flatness of my voice is only heard by me when I stare in the mirror every morning, trying to convince the reflection to choose to be human just for a day. Needless to say that all my efforts were in vain.

Today is different - I thought how dull everything around me is; the grayness of snowless winter usually plays cruel tricks on me and I occasionally fall victim to my consciousness and give up on my robotic life for an hour or two.

I decided to give myself an hour, barely made it for a whole 30 minutes. All the feelings flooded me at once; my senses were in overload as if I were an old machine trying to install new software – totally incompatible. My head spun, overwhelmed by moments I carefully locked in my mental metal box, stored away like an emergency kit when I am badly hurt. And honestly, I didn’t like it. Everything I had carefully “forgotten” and ignored came back slapping me hard in the face. I even felt how my heart ached from every choice I had made and deemed wrong. I felt the same weakness which scared me 7 years ago. This was the same sensation that pushed me to seal off my humanity and start the game of pretending.

In the beginning I was bad at it, really bad. It felt impossible but then it clicked. I was looking in the mirror – eyes empty, no will to live but my face moved differently. My mouth pronounced the right words effortlessly, at the right time, with the correct intonation and even my eyes started sparkling with the proper amount of joy. On that day my career of perfecting the art of being heartless began. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a choice I made just to try. I made up my mind after another disappointment and all the pain it brought to my already damaged soul. This was never my first choice but my last chance to survive. And I did it. I survived… barely.

Now my safety mechanism has become my curse. It takes more and more to go back to how I used to be, not to feel foreign to myself. And when it becomes too heavy for me to handle, the switch turns on. Nothing – this is my favourite setting. I admit it’s not the most brilliant plan but at least I am still here – numb but here.

30 minutes – the only time in more than two years I felt the grief and love I can give to anyone and to myself. And when the pain is intolerable - game on. I turned off, again. Enough tears, enough ache, enough frustration, enough anger. I am letting the protective shell to consume me until I find another way to heal. In the meantime, I will keep performing as if I am living normally, day by day.