It happened again.

The shame is almost overwhelming.

A brief burst of pleasure,
tinged quickly with pain.

Even more quickly followed by
shame, guilt, and anger.

But strangely,
despite these dark emotions filling me to the brim
with a black bitterness

I still feel hollow.
Lessened.
Diminished.

As if a small crack has fractured anew in my soul.

I feel the energy taking leave of my body,
deepening the despair.

My emotions, previously running hot and fast,
quickly dull into tired cold lumps of apathy.

I bury them to make it so.

So that when someone asks,
"How are you?"
I can reply, "Doing alright,"
When I'm not.

The world, this beautiful world,
only moments ago so bright and joyous,
has become annoyingly colorful,
too pleasant for my darkened countenance to appreciate.

"When will I get free?"
I ask myself.
"Will this ever end?"

Praying almost daily for months
but still dealing with the same problems.

Begging to my God for something to give,
for a breakthrough of any sort.

Fighting the desire to give up,
I pick myself up again.

As I always have.

After all, it's only been 12 years.

Only half of my lifetime.

What's another day

in this never-ending struggle?


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