Seeker after truth,
poetry is but an art –
such sweet, dark poison!

A path through the night,
shining, guiding your soft feet
through myriad minds,

through numberless souls
and catharses uncounted –
public loves and pain.

Easy to trust in,
yet perilous to believe:
all art is fiction.

I gave a damn – oh, how I tried!
Daily newly crucified
on the altar of your pride…
I contemplated suicide,
but I had sanity on the side.

But when I found out how you’d lied
something deep within me died,
so I retreated, misty-eyed,
and though it’s something you’d deride,
I’ll hold to sanity on the side.

You see, I’ve always had to hide
a kernel of Me deep inside,
a secret, daily magnified,
an alter ego glorified:
that’s my sanity on the side.

Ward and castle, fortified,
keeping feelings locked inside –
love and poison side by side.
You couldn’t reach me if you tried,
I’ve got sanity on the side.

I gave a damn – and how I cried
even before I knew you’d lied;
but nothing harms my other bride
the one that’s hidden deep inside –
my piece of sanity on the side.

Yellow light through thin curtains –
dawn in a lonely cottage.
I can smell the wood of the floor, the rafters,
my senses sharper in the morning air.
A blissful moment,
not knowing who, or what, or where I am,
an instant of untrammelled thought, crystal clear…

Then memory returns –
a night of horrors, fear and darkness,
knowing that that which I fear is myself
yet unable to change to my nature.
How long? and for how much longer?
To endure this living hell, this pain, this torture:
I long to end it but cannot.

Reviling my revelry, my joy,
my soul feeds on dark desires and lusts.
I pray each night for the surcease of morning,
but pray each day for the release of night.