traitor.

a traitor dwells inside my breast.
daily she betrays the invested interests of my senses:
she inhales like her breaths are not numbered –
like time is not her enemy…
yet it’s my lungs she’s using.
she will not yield.
she will not comply.
like a broken compass that points ever only east, she is relentless.
“hope,” she repeats.
belief is her disease.
day after day she searches, yet she has no eyes to see.
this traitor looks out from inside of me.
i can feel her drive.
i can feel her desire.
she eats, yet it’s my belly she fills.
she drinks, yet it’s my blood that stirs with the wine of her hope.
her incessant, intoxicating hope.
she hopes for love.
i can feel it coursing through my veins.
that resolute buoyancy of hope…
like the eager anticipation of those who have not yet experienced the
sharp teeth of this world.
i’m drunk with it.
surely people can tell as i stumble and walk.
like the stench of old liquor, it resides on my clothes.
it wages war on the validity of my senses.
“hope,” she repeats.
yet she’s not exposed to the world.
life is not so easy for those who see and hear and
touch and smell and taste.
am i impervious to heartbreak, like that defector inside of me?
she doesn’t feel the hot-teared backlash of shattered desires.
no. i am the one that must feel.
i, who am no virgin schoolgirl.
i, who am no stranger to this life.
i, who have long been at war with both the world and the naïve turncoat
inside my chest.
yet the bitter aftertaste of our combat is this:
i gave her that dream to which she so adamantly clings.
i whispered it to her in the depths of secrecy,
in the throes of childhood optimism.
oh, the secrets and dreams that spill from young and unscarred hearts.
she has never let me forget them.
they ever chase me, in her unrelenting heartbeat.
yet i have long since learned the ways of this world.
i have learned: only a fool continues to hope for what once
broke his heart.
how now am i supposed to believe her promptings?
“hope,” she repeats.
love.
what soldier lays down his armor, when the battle has proven to draw
blood?
and what man comes looking for a woman whose lips have been
tasted by shame?
yet my head wears the crown of a victor.
the corpse of my past lies warm yet lifeless at my feet –
surrounded by Blood and my broken bonds.
so many foes i’ve overcome, only to now be at war with my own heart.
“hope,” my spirit repeats.
hope.
she demands my allegiance.
by the end of every day, she has it.
and at the end of every day, my soul says: “fool.”