Pointless Struggle

What do you do when you look in the mirror and the sudden rush of hate for what you see causes your eyes to sting? When just staring at that reflection, into those lifeless eyes, makes you feel physically ill? How disorienting it is, and I really doubt that you understand what it is that I'm trying to convey- unless, of course, you've stared back at yourself and no longer recognized the person on the glass. I couldn't begin to describe how hopeless things begin to look, how uninspiring, how dull. Staring into those eyes is like walking down a dark hall, adorned with pictures of all of your memories, and not feeling attached to anything- no emotion. Whether the memories are good or bad. You simply are not yourself. And in that moment of detachment you feel lost. The hall never seems to end, so you are wandering. Pointlessly down the same path the must've gotten you lost in the first place. No doors, no windows, no turns by which you can escape. So everthing becomes meaningless and you just walk numbly through the oblivion of your mind.
          Some say you are a victim, a prisoner, of your own mind. And I don't need to wonder why. I know the cold corridors of my own, the chains that my thoughts seem to grip to foolishly. I understand the complexity of an internal struggle and the exhaustion of the senseless fight. Getting nowhere. You're just stuck. You're alone inside your mind, inside yourself- even though you may be surrounded on the outside. You still always feel alone, and that's what matters to the corners and crevices of who you are. The emotions are the chains, the memories are the cells, and your thoughts are the crimes. You are your own warden, your own executioner. Don't trick yourself into believing something on the outside could bind you so completely. You are trapped by yourself- a very obviously equal opponent. Two parts of one, so how could you possibally win?

"Could I Ever Love Myself?"

There is a vastness stretching out before me
And I cannot see the other side of this canyon.
I'm in need of higher ground, in need of light.
This darkness has melted and merged into who I am,
And now it acts as a deadly poison.

I know every scar I bare is self-inflicted;
I realize I am a walking contradiction.
"Can anyone love something so beaten, so broken?"
The question echoes inside me-
Bouncing through a painfully vacant heart.

Another question has slowly surfaced and now it stares me in the face-
"Could I ever love myself with all the things inside me that I hate?"
How can I forget the past, one ingrained by pain?
All of the emptiness eating me now reaches through cold memories,
And even after years...I haven't discovered a way in which to escape it.

My elusive joy was buried long ago, in a child's box-
Filled with random trinkets and points of laughter.
It seems I can no longer remember the burial ground of that essential treasure.
After packing it all away and resigning myself to misery
I have forgotten every part of myself- now hidden away forever.

An emptiness resonating through my being-
Tearing me through a vortes of hopelessness; numbness.
There is no pain anymore, just a horrible longing
For everything that was, for what I could've been.
I'm so lost now and I possess no energy to return...

Broken and laying on the ground- tears softening the ground.
Softening the reality- I am going nowhere.
Why would I ever love an empty shell?
So, "Could I ever love myself?"...
With a defeated sigh you'll hear me whisper......"no, never."


~Amanda Jane Grondin~