"Darkness"
by Eric von Bayer

Darkness, hard and cold
like a blanket of ice
the world in black and white
flat
featureless
roses, skies, sunsets...
all washes of grey
this reality blotts out all else

Sitting alone
alone in the grey world
feeling empty
aware of my aloneness...
my days,
like distant memory...
I lived another life.

That other person and I
somehow sharing a body
but when the day is over
it is just me
me...
me sitting alone
looking into the mirror of my life

What brought me here every night?
Why?
Why was I here?
Burried inside the walls of my brain
addict of helplessness.
Addict of exhaustion...

I understood...
sometimes I understand
when the world is crashed and broken
I see lucidly...
simply...
I see what's wrong...

But then
the world becomes motion...
grey blurs of confusion...
I lose sight and fall.

Addict of helplessness...
so much more I could be
for want of something to desire
beyond these possessive bonds.

There's no fault when you're helpless
Things are just how they are...
Simple...
Fatalisticly simple
so strong are the charms.

I cry... helpless...
wanting to get out...
but here is known.

I hate this hole,
I've fallen in it time again.
How can so many people see me every day?
Don't they know I need help?
Can't they see the scared child in my eyes?
How can the world be so blind!

I don't blame them.

I know...
I know the other me looks happy and well,
maybe a little tired.
He doesn't plead to them for contact.
He doesn't show his need for a hug.

He seems to come alive at contact,
He is like a bright sunshine, with an off switch...
Life is borrowed...
Light is borrowed...
Gone as quickly...

I don't blame them.
Sometimes he cracks...
sometimes I come through...
my birthsign Cancer
how fitting
for the water that flows from my eyes
for the blood that drains from my heart

This other me,
how can he see color where I cannot?
Maybe this just proves I am a shadow.
I've never felt part of things,
always alien, different, marginally welcome

Too innocent, yet too twisted...
Addicted to helplessness...
I loved a woman
to the very heart

I never let myself love like that before
Never let myself want...
I never let myself desire...
I fit myself into a sexless shell...
like a hermit crab, slave to his home.
Life is so much simpler that way.

I let myself love this woman...
I let myself be free...
I let myself desire...
I let myself be a man...
I let myself be sexual...
And for a while, I saw color.
And even though things were askew
Things were a little brighter.

But all light and color faded
and now I am a shadow again
My heart aches with the memory of color
to not be alone in the dark
to not remember those things
to not still feel sexual, but now empty...
addicted to a new helplessness.

This is me.