Written by Katie Pezzutto
My clamouring mind twists and bends, serpentine.
Waves sway as we drift away
in this vessel of decay
floating further out to sea.
Striving, numbness, and painful depravity
Is what she’s planned for me.
She crouches and watches,
gaze moonlit in the thinning veil of time.
Facing fear I lean forward.
I look her in the eyes.
Mud-green, shining with greed,
so many years and tears she’s won.
I hate her, I love her.
She gives control, and makes life liveable.
Helpless, I’m terrified
of my mirror animal.
Her lies have captivated far too long, silenced my song, my peace.
Her words drag this jagged heart through caverns, up mountains, and oceans of disbelief.
She’s cut me open.
My final hour has come.
This is where I will drown.
She’s weakened and broken me
but I want to be free.
I need to be free.
“Fear, you don’t own me.”
Her pouting lips twist sardonically.
I inhale, voice stronger now.
“I don’t want you. Your power is gone.
“Leave!”
Eyes dark as sin, sharp as granite, they morph black as the sea.
Filling with rage, she lunges and pulls.
A cry of rage rattles my interior cage.
It’s time.
He calls me worthy to be seen. As I am, not who she’s made me to be.
I shove her over the line, the divide, and into the watery grave she meant for me.
She falls, screams muffled by defeat and stinging salt.
The cuts she’s engraved will fade at the realization of grace.
Lighthouse ahead, shines clarity into my internal storm.
Oppression gone, at the bottom now, a helpless vapid form.
New life ahead, a fresh wind ahead. Freedom scatters seeds of regret.
And I live again
because the old me is dead.
