Imposter
What if I'm wrong?
One of these broken messes
Always a ghost in the corner
The fractures never healed
What if these jagged edges are just hiding behind the gold inlay?
What if the ash
Of what I never was
Comes back to stain our brilliant life?
What if I'm not violence contained,
What if my bars are too weak to hold the monster within?
What if my words cut like daggers?
What if my soul is just obsidian?
Only reflecting the light until it's under pressure
When the darkness comes out
Shattered and sharp?
What if the tormented storm
Is who I am?
Chaos and hate and death?
And the shiny love is just a shell
Hiding the malice behind a very thin veil?
What if the good parts of me really did die
Long ago
Drowned in tears that were never cried?
And now lie rotting in a putrid marsh?
What if.,.?
What if I can't be loved?
Shouldn't be loved?
What if my existence was meant to be horror?
Wanton bloodlust to be set for the frail, weak part of me?
It disgusts me that without my darkness,
I don't have strength.
That I, teeming with swarms of fleshrending thoughts,
Should yield to the timid and tame.
Self-loathing,
I abhor the tin paladin I pretend to be.
My smile was meant to show fangs,
Not gentleness.
My hunt was meant to spill blood,
Not hope.
I was never meant to live long enough
To watch immortal dreams die.
To watch love fail.
To crumble.
I was supposed to die this vainglorious death in battle
Against what did not matter.
And yet…
Shattered I was mended
Broken I was puzzled back together.
And I learned to feel pain I had so oft ignored.
I am not who I was supposed to be.
And I don't deserve the love that waters my pastures.
Copyright © Matthew Wetter | Year Posted 2025
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