Lily of the Valley

*Trigger Warning: mentions of self-harm and violence*

It was a Friday morning

the Sun still playing peek-a-boo

with the monsoon clouds.

My dry orbs lay wide awake

as I play hide-and-seek

with the infinite regress.

The smell of rain in the air;

The remnants now gone of what was once there.

Rolling onto my side, at the alarm clock I stare,

red-bold strict numbers glare.

That's seven hours and 13 minutes

of some ominous hide-and-seek affair.

I sit up and the dry orbs meet a mirror,

there hunched, my ghoul of a figure,

a pulse, anything but beats,

hair, unintentionally greased.

Heart strings stretched to its last tune.

A morbid self-promise to be carried out soon.

One door closes, another opens.

I settle on the floor of a dingy latrine.

The crickets chirping,

the roosters still asleep.

And when the world wakes

I'll be drowned in vermillion red.

As the sharp end grazes,

the wind blows grey,

mourning in advance

to the burdens that weigh.

I admire the sleek shine;

the remedy in my hands.

Silver coated yet thirsty for

some scarlet sweat.

The tears of utter fear

stream down my flaky visage.

Mouth: tastes of rust.

Teeth: clenched.

Heart: thuds.

This is it. Welcome me home, dear sky.

A deep breath in

I take my final glance...

...but by chance,

there sat you, a 4-year-old dreamer

in the tidal waves with an indifferent eye,

deep murky brown

like my favourite flavour of ice-cream,

like my mother's eyes,

like the wet soil after a rainy day.

If I've embraced a void, I've embraced two--

The abyss that claimed to be you.

A love of the silent and the drowned

and I said, "I yield, I yield."

So silence, I'm finally through.

By chance, there bloomed,

lily of the valley,

its white bells rang

the symphonies of hope.

I was pulled out of the depths

by the beacon of your dark, cold heart

and the angels never loved you

but you still smiled, laughed,

cried, envied, and taunted.

They knew that in the end

it has always been you.

Silence, silence you fiend, I'm through.

~m.a.