I wonder now where this tortured soul will go.

I call out and look around; there are mirrors everywhere, but I can’t see them. I bend my ear to hear, but there is nothing but the stony silence to remind me of a simple fact.

I am alone.

Somewhere in the mist of trolling fear and rumbling insanity I sit, searching for something new. In the blackness I look for light, in the silence I seek something that will help me to remember.

And there you are.

You aren’t here, but there. You aren’t where I think you should be, but elsewhere. You are nowhere to be found, but  exist everywhere my attention turns.

With every moment I think of you…

…and then I wonder who you think of.

Who do you think of when your thoughts are free? Whose thoughts are you sharing, whose words are you taking in?

I wonder if you can get a word in edgewise, if you’ve made strange agreements there just to satisfy your hunger.

I wonder if you’re lost in the desires of your mind, the insatiable need to be needed. I wonder if you can even hear yourself in the diatribe, and have staked your place in the forging of the chains you will place upon yourself.

I wonder who you think of when your fingers wander.

I wonder whose name is on your lips when you moan. I wonder who is kissing you there when you let go, and who you beg more from when the wave subsides. I wonder who you taste, who you think of the moment you open up. I wonder who you ask for, and I wonder if you are getting what you deserve.

Who are you thinking of as the tears spill from your eyes? Who has bruised you, and left you wounded where you stand? What do you owe these beasts of burden? You have let them take their swings at you, and you’ve surrendered to their folly. Stand up, I beg you, and take note of who you are. Know the suns that rise in your eyes…

But wait, I wonder.

I wonder who you ask for when you need a place to lean. I wonder whose arms you’re in when you need a spot to rest. Where is your mouth right now that you can’t kiss me?

Who is in your arms that I cannot find solace there?

Who holds your words so dear that you cannot talk to me? Who has so fully taken your attention that I do not cross your mind?

Have I not f*cked you so wonderfully that you need another man? Have I not made you scream so loudly that you have to know his name? Have I not loved you so purely that you seek to dirty that places we have gone, the dreams we have shared, the very lives we had chosen to live?

“Go f*ck yourself!” I scream beyond my voice’s ability to speak. I smash the mirror in which I gaze, and bleed on the spaces that I walk.

My world runs red in indignation, the suffering pouring out of my eyes onto the symbols of love that we had shared. I curse the day I met you. I scream obscenities to heaven and invite hell to test my resolve.

And I wonder..

Who are you thinking of as I writhe in tortured flames, burning on the altar of our dreams?

F*ck….this has to stop.

A shift. A change. A different way.

And a letting go.

A tear. A sob. An inspiration.

And love.

A sigh. A moan. A gentle release.

And peace.

Finally, peace.

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Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Alis La Luna at Pixoto