VICIOUS CYCLES

The place is familiar;

you’ve been here before.

You know what will be said and felt.

You know the details of the aftermath and how to temporarily resolve it.

You know it all.

Everything.

With all that you know you are still a fool,

because only a fool would still be here.

It goes away; taking its regular break.

You watch it leave.

When it finally turns the corner and is no longer in sight, you slowly

walk back to your sanity.

You let out a sigh of relief that it’s over, which is combined

with a sigh of distress that it’s actually not over at all.

What they don’t know is that you are secretly preparing for the next time already,

even though you swore it wouldn’t happen again.

The break is always long enough for you to recover;

it wants you to pull yourself together 

so that it can break you down all over again.

You recover.

It returns.

There’s always room for movement because you have found a way around it.

You are grateful that it is destroying you slowly because that way you can

still breathe.

You are subjected to choosing between worse and worst.

How can something so familiar still feel so strange and hurt this much?

Your logic tells you that you should be used to the pain,

because the fear has convinced you that it’s too late to reclaim your life.

It’s too late for peace.

It’s too late to live.

It leaves once again.

You don’t see it walk away this time because it has left you on the

ground, weaker than ever before.

Its regular break will be longer, because you now need an extended period to recover.

It doesn’t mind the delay,

your pain is worth the wait.

You bounce back.

It has not returned.

You’re ok.

It still has not returned.

You’re feeling good.

There it comes,

carrying its familiar weapons of mass soul destruction.

Logic says run for your life, fear says there is no more life to run for.

There’s nobody to turn to because you’ve shut everybody out,

no longer wanting an audience for your self made tragedy.

The last time is all the time.

Pieces of the promises you have broken are

all over the wet floor soaked with your tears.

You heart is watching all of this confused; “but you said…”

“I know what I said,” you interrupt.

You’re angry.

They pull faces when they walk past you because you leave a sour taste in the air.

You wonder what they see when their eyes fall on you,

considering that you now barely exist.

Perhaps you would find traces of yourself in the mirror,

but out of frustration you broke that too.

You manage to break everything around you but it,

so it continues to break you,

and you continue to assist.

You’re ashamed to see your heart’s face of disappointment;

“but you promised…” it seems to keep saying.

You wonder why it still bothers to speak to you.

There are exits everywhere,

but you remain still

because this terribly strange place is familiar.

This pain is comfortable.

This torture is home.

Somehow this death keeps you alive.