I burned image after image,
thought after thought
laying waste to my mind
just to see if I was awake.

It’s a given,
a tidal wave that burns
until everything, even my memories
no longer exist in this quake.

I needed to feel the heat,
so I poured what was left
down my throat, and closed my eyes,
watching in darkness the death of a life.

Reckoning, so it seems,
the breaking of chains I once claimed to need.
Desperation to keep myself safe,
I had built a prison fit to seal a fate.

The armor was ice, my skin chafed.
Unfair to carry on shoulders overweighed,
I killed myself for the warmth
that melted the metal of my grave.

I can’t help but feel relief,
as rivers pour down my face.
Don’t mistake, as I once did,
these tears don’t make me weak.

The trails through the dirt on my face,
no different from the scars tracking my arms.
I broke everything, destroyed it all,
to set it all, to set myself, free.