I’ve chosen not to wear my grief and despair

like shards of broken glass or snapped razor blades

on my less-than-me person

I’ve chosen not to hurt others although my pain has

an enormous capacity for imagination or

is that fantasist?

Dissociation, dissonance, disappointment –

I can use it to carve my poor heart a poorer shape

Should I?

I’ve chosen not to

This pain would hurt less

but I don’t need for others to feel

I would rather shelter and protect

Keep safe and trapped those imaginary

demons – who will come to hover like eye-poking

vultures in their scruffiness as I lie here

in the night

Keeping that evil, seeping, energy-sucking

succubus of hurt from me

Arms length – keeping strength

and land stretches towards me

the sand and sea – it pulls away

living is movement, not breathing

and earth ties me to a life of dirt

Sunshine and lollipops –

a distraction

merely a time-waster

ball-breaker, man-hater, life-taker

I’ve chosen not to…

© Kait King, 2015