Isolate

“Who hurt you this much?”
…I did.

This bruise alone
is all I feel
rawness pulsing
through me.

No smile evokes
a smile
empty tears
of lifeless continuance.

I breathe
I choke
on scented air
pleasant for you
and your sane head.

I cry out
fall in
miserable
in my valley of sin
tugging at your rope
that never pulls up—
Living the lie
Of hands that raised me
Succumbed into
False ladders.

Beat me
hurt me
kiss me
Kill me.
Let my bones
ache
and sense you
for a change.

You, falling in
love with the world.
Guilting me
because I can’t
reciprocate.

You, oblivious,
ignorant bastard.
Blind to this
Glass Box
I’m caged to
Cutting off rotten
air, inching
me closer to
endless despair.

“Why worry?”
“Why care?”
“You’re too young
to feel this old.”

Words of wisdom
fall deaf on
these ears.
Sympathetic eyes warned
to fold.

Hanging
over the edge
by calloused fingers
no thrill to sink
monotonous mold.
Too morose
for the comfort
of others
too numb to feel the cold.

Your sun is
colourless, in
my shadowed cerebrum
Your stars—
freckles of a
broken night.
Escapes are sealed off
in this dump
devoid of warm light.

It will be this way
always
abandoned in lands
Of bland fruit
Living a half life
scarred
in this greige
world of fiction.

Release the hounds
let them devour
the leftovers of
my crippled convictions.
I’m best left
alone, limp and
sour
bleak in my own afflictions.

***

~Manushrie Verma