Obscurity

A thin veil shimmers in a cold pseudo-wind,

hung on impossibly high rafters, far behind sightlines.

On the fabric is a pressed glass,

twisting and bending with the veil as it reflects.

Gazing at it, there’s a figure, how I’m supposed to be.

It looks so foreign, alien and vexing

I touch my skin and see the hand in the mirror do the same,

But only shows the surface what the waking world sees.

Sleeping underneath, a second me, bastardized and disconnected,

separates and cuts into pieces lest it never awaken.

Its sharp claws lay under inside my fingers,

their tips threatening to test through my own.

I don’t want to harm others. I don’t feel the need,

but the sleeping one thinks it'll right the ways i've been wronged.

If I flourish my bone-claws, none can hurt me.

Teeth inside my jaws, rending the gums till I can taste blood,

ready to grow and blossom. While I mourn for myself,

I’m comfortable and accepting of what I am.

The sleeping one wants to devour everyone else,

taste the joy and everything I missed.

The friendships and the soft, almost petty heartbreaks.

Behind my eyes lay its own gaze, made of rusted and war-sharpened iron,

it refuses to have any clemency. All must be judged for the fullest of their actions and sins,

all must be harmed, lest they harm another. It wants to see myself as something else.

A torrent, a gracious and unrelenting dark form,

the black feathers against the skin roaring with hate radiate pain.

The golden plate eyes are always watching and aware, undreaming.

No self delusions of joy, just the cold reality. Yet it cannot support itself.

It collapses under its own negativity and rests.

Obscurity of oneself, I am not the original but the dream of the sleeping one,

a dream of a better self, one capable of love yet I can only feel the fringes of it.

Happiness yet the smile I wear doesn’t match how I feel.

Candid sorrow, yet tears flow from eyes I cannot feel.

Unbridled rage, while my fist hits the wall I feel my heart slow and steady.

Yet I must be the waking one, for the sleeping one has endured too much,

and sleeping seals away the pain he endured.

I am left with only momentos that slip through his eroding tomb,