The Fiend

Like gloves, it wears my skin,

hiding its own calloused fingers,

I feel it rubbing, leathery against

the insides of my hand alive.

It changes the beat of my heart

to rhythm unnatural. Pounding

away my despaired screams for help.

If only they could hear its frenzied laugh,

If only they could see.

Why don’t they hear me, rescue me?

I’m screaming loud, but in here,

there’s nothing louder than silence.

They can’t see the invisible tears

streaming down my face,

the very visage of Sorrow.

Oh how I am confined, enveloped,

wrapped in a musty curtain, out of sight.

Hours of darkness never end.

I am but a prisoner looking out

through cold, barred windows,

Free to think,

but powerless beyond my bounds.

The fight in me grows weaker,

I’m a puppet to its will.

For days, months, years, I live

confined within my head and heart.

Until one day, the calm settles.

I am left wondering if there is,

and ever was, more than

a fabricated web of self-deceit,

having imaginated within.

Perhaps now there won’t be screams.

Perhaps now, the fiend is me, and I,

The Fiend.