I stand before you
a broken man.
At the edge of the world,
where stars scream
and tears go to die.
Ivy climbs the trellis
as quickly as it climbs my throat.
Though I can't breathe,
my rustic demeanor
enchants the audience.
Buried alive in guilt
and wrought by shame,
my life teeters on a cliff,
threatening to kill
what's really inside of me.
The cadence of my sleeping breath
is a symphony without movement.
I can lie still,
but my tossing and turning
will never cease.
The people around me
pretend they care,
but they don't know
my beast, my horror,
my cosmic, cyclical nightmare.
Can you understand what it means to be a shell?
