Eàmonn's Undressing Room

Watch me exhale and try to breathe in, struggling in the vacuum of my own bubble.  Seeing through its drunken surface at every turn I smell trouble, and lately it comes in double.

That which does not kill me used to make me stronger, until I lowered the outer wall,

now every blow cracks my heart.

Its shattering seems a question of when, not if, and I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Waiting, guessing, thinking, soaking into the pages

and bleeding out in tears.

 

Don’t hurt me, that’s all I ask, just

 please don’t hurt me

anymore.

 I’m on the ground already.

Just stop.

 

Stop.

I don't feel safe telling this to anybody, so I'm going to tell myself on the internet. How fucking random and pointless. I'm about to fly off the handle.

I want my life to end.

fin.

Losing my way is my way. Where have I gone; when will I come back? I suppose I can never go back, I can only come.... here. My mind isn't here, it's there, always drawn there. I sit and breathe, I open my palms to the universal mudra to let all pass through - but I am dragged away, back there. I can't watch myself be there anymore; it has to be here or nowhere... the distance between here and there is nothing but pain.

There it is. I'm here, for a brief moment, and I realize it's no different. This uncomfortable blanket covers me wherever I am. All the work, all the struggle, the pain, the blood and tears, half my life spent slaving on my body's project and for.....? For the purpose I started, continued, for that purpose I achieved what so few have done. Am I someone to look up to because of that? What does it mean, any of it? A monk, a moral man, a good friend, who stubbornly and masochisticly cut away at himself in an effort to fit, in more ways than one. What is it? It's nothing. The reason I began, the reason I continued, was to be loved in a way so many others take for granted, even just for a moment. After all of this, even in the midst of loving myself I still stand alone, growing tired and sinking to my knees.

Nobody's going to pull you up. All that's left now is manhood, or sleep...

My eyes hurt from seeing. My quivering lips drip blood, but it doesn’t matter, the carpet’s stained  through anyway. I can’t even remember where they all come from, but my bones feel their vibrations... and each new strike against my head recalls all their echoes. When my mind stops shaking and the floor lies still I’m left with ringing ears calling out in a child’s voice, and children only ever ask one thing...

There are times I am the ocean, others I am the sand. Some times... depthless and unfathomable, my only queen the glittering moon. Others... pushed and pulled, laid down to rest only until the queen brings the black sheet back to cover me. The sand clings to that darkness and the shapes it sees within, its porous body weakly clutching at the moon’s blood until her tide soothes it away. It never holds... and in time the beach erodes, and with it all the wants and desires buried in the sand. For a time I am the ocean again.

For a time... until the sands form new beaches, and I grasp at the shapes these sands form in the deep. My queen... bring back the tide. Wash me away...