Prism I: The First Stage of Identity Erosion
Powerful ocean,
heaps of mouths.
We synchronize our needs,
but don't respect them.
And that's the tragedy.
My mouth was sewn shut,
words stuck in my throat.
And just when I regained my voice,
he left.
Because I'm supposed to be joyful.
Always.
Now it's painful every time — to open my soul.
You always return to him,
as if he'll change.
As if this time you'll talk the way you wanted, not debase yourself before him.
Every time I visualize our experience,
all I see is black.
Black and white. But the white fades.
This visualization helps me understand the essence of evil,
yet somehow I'm still here, in his bedroom, letting myself be wrung out like a rag.
"It's out of desperation, right. Not because I like it."
Maybe I miss the war?
The whole problem is a deficit of communication. The madness born from loneliness.
And so I find the courage to return to the light,
throwing myself into the embrace of the noisy city,
letting it devour all my rebellious silence.
But to seek hope in someone new every time:
It's so exhausting.
Hunger is a torment
for an insatiable person.
And sometimes I give in to it,
as if trying to help,
ripping my heart open
and spilling its guts and all its contents. As if it's a charity fund.
Sometimes you have to tear your clothes off,
otherwise he'll forget who I am.
Pity he takes it so literally.
Not that perceptiveness was his distinguishing feature,
or that his emotional pressure awakened a monster in me.
His blindness was his main problem.
Our music is too different,
and he only hears his own.
And our energies are so contrasting
that I've forgotten what it's like
to sound in unison.
Do I look like someone
who needs a life of old age
lying without aspirations,
sinking into the mattress all day?
When you're drowning in this ocean,
it's easy to forget what truly matters.
Getting what he wants,
the beast calms down and loses interest.
And every time it happens,
I crave retribution.
The streets are unbreakable,
the city doesn't sleep.
Unlike me,
though, honestly, it's more like a coma.
Exotic thoughts and sinister places.
Memories long forgotten,
that once instilled hope.
The dilapidated outskirts became my habitat.
And only gunshots illuminate the darkness in my heart.
Easy access stripped the beast of interest,
and now it no longer notices the prey.
I used to hide from the storm in his embrace,
now his embrace creates the storm itself.
And the hotter his one-night stands,
the harder it is for me to hold back tears.
After all, everyone knows I love more fiercely than anyone.
He pretends to understand,
but I know when I'm being lied to.
Patriarchal dominance. Blind conformity.
If only you knew how hard he shouts about his humanity, but
in matters of emotion, empathy, socialization,
he's a complete blockhead.
"Not all is doomed:
you still hold my heart in your hands,"
I thought.
But now the streets are dead.
And the colder they get,
the more noticeable the emptiness in my eyes.
He called my heart a horror,
but did I choose it?
Black lake.
It's hard to push through times like these,
when there's no one to talk to. Moments of drowning in this abyss.
So sometimes I have to take desperate measures.
And then I'm afraid I'll end up on a scaffold
in the middle of a thousand eyes.
Every self-judgment turns into hatred.
And the colder I get,
the farther I go away.
I once thought he could be the one
to save me from the impending death.
But for God's fucking sake.
To put it briefly: to die would be a godsend.
The bonds are unbreakable,
but I am falling apart
to tear them apart
and pull myself out,
proving that happiness can't be found in dependency.
