Control opens the door like a long lost friend
A familiar mask with a crooked smile
With words forming broken sentences
To steer my sanity and smear my name
Into a façade I no longer know.
I’d die from shame if I could
Drown my anxieties in a hollow creekbed
To lay my happiness to rest in oblivion
Replacing the comfort of control
Slinking down my throat like century-old gin.
I’d write letters to who I was
Before the door creaked open
If I cared enough to have a nom de plume
Written in earnest in invisible ink —
I sink beneath the weight of my self-induced world.
Every night, I battle the same demon
That murders the true me in cold blood
With broken ice lacing each vein
Freezing me to the depths of my despair —
Controlling me as I control you.
