Thing that was part of me,
now so dead and ugly.
Self-care and self-abuse,
these are sacred tenets.
Chased all my friends away.
Let my accusers to victory.
Jumped into the fray
and hoped
I would take them all with me.
I acted alone.
I gave away my sorrows.
I make a better world
with the push of a button.
Ask me how
I got
to be
so brave.
Ask me
how I
earned my name,
and I’ll tell it again.
Recount to your friends
how all of this began.
No petty recollections.
I kept the bones of everything
for later recreations.
The dead can dance,
the dead can sing,
so, I guess
everything
we do
is for nothing.
Saying good-bye
to who we were
is a one-handed embrace,
while the other holds a blade.
I never asked for much,
I asked for everything.
Then, when it was mine,
I let it all go again,
but too late.
All those missing parts of me
would never have survived
captivity.
HG – 2021