Month: July 2020

I’ve painted myself into a corner,
with heavy shades
of red and black,
crimson for the
heartache,
darkness for the emptiness 
after the fact.
 
When I lost access to 
my chaotic world,
a paradise I shouldn't 
have cherished,
I felt broken, 
no recourse,
misunderstood, 
essentially alone:

Whom could I waltz through life with now?
Whom was left to cast my 
charming smiles upon, 
to share my lofty views 
in excited tones?

When he or she or another one left,
and those other important ones, too,
it seemed as if I’d lost 
my everything,
but now, at these
warped memories
I wonder: who on earth were you?
 
They had little lasting impact
on my life,
simply passers-by
who only meant
themselves well,
their sudden absences without alibis,
their silences spoke their truths,
I am now completely underwhelmed.
 
Selfish needs later attended to
after some uncomfortable, 
hastily arranged dates - 

their halfhearted, 
lackluster attention cast over
foamed four dollar coffees -
'wise investments':
I was viewed as a stock market who
should pay dividends later that day.

I proved so desperately hopeful 
for positive connections, 
genuine interactions, 
yet my lonely eagerness,
was perceived as a targeted weakness, 
I would later bend, shatter, 
and break.

Some chanced manipulation 
to slyly extract from me  
without my whole realisation or knowing,

because I was sitting there 
smiling,
consenting,
hopefully waiting,
my obvious yearning 
for acceptance
continually, perpetually growing,
like hungering, destructive flames,
they consumed me. 
 
Made pliable,
easily melded,
I allowed my 
resolve and will
to be bent,
to be repeatedly stung red-raw 
as though by a heated iron poker's end, 
to be tarnished,
and for what?

Absolutely nothing,
my efforts and emotions all ill spent.

Yet another 
redundant contact
to be eventually blocked or 
erased from view,
naivety and gullibility stole 
the best of my younger years, 
this is an essential, festering truth.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved. 
Image by Marion Grimm from Pixabay

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