Eight

I craned my neck

Took a look

Into my aching soul

Shot a dart

Into the dark

At the center of it all

Hoping I might feel something

Beyond the numbing dread

But I guess I’ve come apart

Much deeper than I thought

That hardened Core

Within my chest

Is separate from me

But made up of my psychic cells

A tumor on my soul

If I touch it

It arrests my breathing

The closer that I look

The more my vision clouds

With tears made of my fear

Fear of confronting me

And what may lie beneath

That dark and hostile place

My mind says there’s a monster

That lurks just beneath my skin

His eyes are mine

But his will sleep

If I don’t touch the Core

His tongue turns mine to daggers

To inflict our pain

Transfer it to others

He is tied to the Core

That’s the story that I tell

And if I examine anything

I might unleash his hell

The times that I have dared to try

To journey to that place

I wander through a forest

And in the center find a cage

The door is open wide

With no evidence of locks

In the middle sits a child

Wearing my younger face

When he looks at me he smiles

And all my cells will scream

Because they think he is the monster

But I find myself intrigued

He wanders to the cage’s bars

Reaching out his little hand

If I take it

He will whisper

Something that will break me

He’s done it many times

And always with the truth

Last time he said

About the cage

“I know it isn’t real

But you can’t trust that

So I wait

Until you break it down”

In that moment everything

Crystallizes, then dissolves

And I’m back

Inside my body

Left to wonder what is true