In lies I was beautiful,
In lies I could have dreamed,
In lies I felt secure,
In lies they worshipped me.

The beauty, disintegrated
—crumbled like dry skin,
and the raw flesh of reality
swallowed me in.

It peeled away, it
Scratched and shredded,
It’s merciless goal to
Slice away the lies
I embedded.

Discarded and bloody,
Upon the burning, salty
Shores of a world so
Foreign
—so forlorn.

Like the salt engrained in
My wounds
Was the pain of desolation,
While I stood upon the soulless
Shores
Of truth.

They made me face
Every fear, every mistake,
Swallow their poison,
Until it coursed in my
Veins, and left my throat
Searing.

They made me feel weak,
Destroyed my self sustaining
Confidence—brinking me
Upon the edge of reality,
It’s jagged teeth glaring from below
—and there hung the glorious
bodies of others who had slipped
upon uncertainty and were
caught in it’s killing arms.

Would I become the next victim?
Their hands pressed upon my
Back, gently urging me to
Slip.

And sometimes I was tempted
To end it all, just close my eyes
And
Fall.
—then would I finally cross this
withered ocean to find something
again? Something surrounded
With the familiarity of
Dishonesty?

But I was the prisoner
Of their truths
—of their beliefs.
They told me I sit
Upon nothing but lies.
I never told them
they sit upon my
Silent refusal to
Divulge my secrets.

And yet, I shivered upon the barren
Glamour of those shores,
I shivered all the more
When the waves of jagged
Ice stripped me.
Took my decency,
While their voices
Took my courage.

I placed myself on
The edge of their world,
Placed myself the farthest
Away from their truths.

But their hisses still slither their
Way to my ears, their singeing breath
Still slings brutal gusts of malice
At the paper skin of my throat,
And their killing kisses of
Disaster still threaten my
Will to prevail.

Paper fragments of my mind,
Rusted dust of this worn heart,
The silently cruel ocean slowly wearing
Me away—their truths still bound
To penetrate
—infiltrate,
destroy me.

Oh, and they already have.
They already have everything.

If only I can regain
Something.