I am a house with many doors,
Each locked with keys I do not own—
The laughter of a child upstairs,
A weeping girl who walks alone.
One sings to stars in trembling light,
Another rages at the moon,
And I, the quiet one they fear,
Watch dawn arrive too soon it's near.
The mirror shifts—my face is new,
My name a sound I half recall.
I live in echoes, fractured rooms,
Where no one voice can speak for all.
Yet there is balm in whispered truth,
And hands that do not flinch away—
A gentle word, a steady gaze,
Can thread the night with day.
And one by one, the doors unclose.
I walk within a shadowed hall,
Where echoes fade before recall,
The walls are bare, the mirrors blind,
A labyrinth, a maze in my own mind.
Fragments are scattered like broken glass,
Like a thousand leaves beneath the sun,
I search for truths I cannot find,
Each moment lost, each thread unlined.
The years slip by, a voiceless tide,
They took my past and let me hide.
What hands have written on my page,
What silent thief, what silent rage?
Faces hover, in the ether as mist,
Names unspoken, moments missed.
The weight of time, a hollow sphere,
Its whispers lost, its meaning unclear.
And yet, some part of me remains,
A song beneath the sharpest pains.
The heart remembers what the mind forgets,
In sorrow's cradle, no regrets.
Though my memory falters, cracks, and breaks,
Each gap, a wound, each ache, an ache,
I gather pieces, sharp and blunt,
And weave the fabric in my mind.
For even as the past decays,
I hold to light, to brighter days,
A fractured soul, yet still I try,
With open hands, beneath wide skies.
Thinking about us
I come undone
Looking back I don’t know
Whether we lost or won
Voices in my mind
That I just can’t translate
But I know
I’ll learn to appreciate
I’m not laying blame
I’m not keeping score
I just wish I could find
Who I was before
All was taken
And more was lost
A dissociative fugue
Cost us the lot
What am I supposed to do
When parts of me
Trapped in the past
Are forced to flee?
Nobody sees
Just how hard this can be
Cut off from reality
Locked inside
Misery remains
Hanging by a noose
The final thread
one day will
be cut loose
We fight to run
We fight to return
We fight to live
We fight to die
When will the world see
Just how bad the
trauma was for me
I wasn’t lying
Or making it up
I had medical evidence
That backed me up
I’ll never understand
How a judge
Could’ve dismissed that
A little girl lay still
Quietly in her bed
Fighting the screams
That roared inside her head
Hiding the fear within
Eyes sealed shut
Breath contained
Too scared to move
She can longer stay
Too distressed
Her little brain floats away
Splitting itself
Forming new selves to take the pain
Anything to survive
This torturous hell
It's happening to another now
She's safe
Her psyche remains intact
Shielded from the events
Amnesia has taken care of that
When she returns
No longer aware
She continues on
As if nothing had ever happened
Totally oblivious to her own life events
We can thank Dissociative Identity Disorder for that.
Swimming in a pool of blood-
Baptized in my own sins.
Dancing with my demons
Almost as though we were friends.
Soaking in my misery-
And I cannot evade.
The memories inside of me -
That I relive every day.
I've tried to understand.
Why I deserved the wrath of rage.
Or why I had to suffer-
By the hands of the deranged.
No matter what I've done-
(to) erase these visions in my mind.
They leech off of my soul -
And they don't leave much life behind.
I try to carve the voices out-
Which buzz inside my skull.
But then they all pour out-
And overflow my cup, so full.
And then without a second thought-
I'll drink that full cup down.
And then the voices, yet again -
Replace silence, with their sound.
I have a friend,
A friend that I never knew off
Not until he showed his face on the mirror
And he talked to me
"Tell me what's your deepest fear
Is it knowing that you have no control
Or that I'm the one in control
And you just the vessel to pass my message
Tell me why do you hold back
Instead of lushing out at your adversaries
I could, but why would I fight your battles
You the one who needs to stand up for yourself
How do you let them call you crazy
While this is just a disorder
Why let them look you with those eyes
As if they're better than you
Stop smiling, you not okay
Show them you also feel
Feel when they talk behind your back
You feel when you not included
I'll leave you with that for now
Cause I've already taken you hostage
Keeping you here looking at me
And how composed I am"
Then the friend would disappear
Before I told him bye
But he doesn't look like one for byes
Cause he seems so sure to come back
The PO£T
I met the new soul I was due to become,
This morning, around about two.
He was beginning to redesign my thoughts,
He was going to make me feel new,
When I thought, hang on, I haven’t finished
Creating and being all that is me,
I haven’t finished building everything
That is fun and friendly and free.
So we had a discussion about
A time share throughout the year;
I could be the weekend painter,
While he could be the career.
This morning my new soul and I started
A great work/rest time plan,
Just the two of our souls living together
Sharing this one single man.
If scars are meant to be scrubbed out,
Then days are meant for dissociation.
And age is how long it’s been since you made it.
I can’t choke them off like words I could never
Jar out of myself.
The light broke off—
I can no longer stand to watch my hands
Tremble.
I knew you were a goddess the second you slipped
Off all your clothes
8 am, and how the time goes
On
And things are no longer
Dilated like plump veins,
And the black of your pupils;
I am no longer the same.
My favorite thing was smiling into your kiss;
Now I wonder why
I made it through for this.
If scars are meant to be hidden away,
You’d never have given me the time of day.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.