PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Would I ever subconsciously impair this rare bond we share?

Would I deceive myself into debasing it into disrepair?

I tell myself no but worry that I am very much able

I scream inside no but agonize that I am capable

My infinite inclination to retreat into the familiar of chaos

My sorrowful, self-destructive habit of forgetting self-care

The etchings in my mind say we’ll not endure

That a heartbroken conclusion of us is ensured

That inconsolable on a forlorn field I will die

Yet I think I know that all could be just a lie

I suppose these thoughts are my usual self-treason

But too often I fixate that they will become true

That someday I will undermine and undo us

Devastating the ethereal bond I have with you

Mentally far from where you are

And not near where I should be

I detest this sabotaging side of me

Hypnotized by my lurking demise

With enfeebled eyes towards it I gravitate

Unremitting war with my corrupted core

Entangled in calamities that will not abate

It has been this way since I can recall

Setting up traps ahead for myself

Tripwires I designed to make me fall

Weakened and waning while here

And if I linger too long I will disappear

My tortured tides drift me there

Out into the muted distance

They force me back there

Strangling my internal resistance

Is it there that I actually belong?

Destined to surrender there all along?

I have never believed in destiny

But I still delude myself convincingly

The tides compel me to follow them

To a place of nothing right

To a place of sheer wrong

The place I fear I belong

Half of me with you

Half of me astray

Half of me stalking death

Half of me seizing the day

Habitually sequestered from where you are

Disoriented and distorted in the bleak afar

Thoughts of an intentional cessation possessing

Planning a self-extinguishing prophecy

Dropping myself into a quagmire of distressing

But you are close beside me

As you unceasingly are

Your illumination leading me to living

Grabbing my hand before I drift too far

Navigating me back to where I should be

Leaving the realm I quell the life in me

Guiding me back from this place so far

Returning me from the bleak afar

Half of me beside you

Half of me stolen away

It desires me eternally removed from you

In its nebulous domain it craves me to stay

Someday will I wander too far?

Too far from where you are

Will I vanish within the departing distance?

Absorbed fully into the bleak afar

You are my devoted haven in its downpour

In its draining rain your flame remains

You are my little glow in its murky vastness

And I find not a single doubt

That the means to dissolving myself 

Is to blow the candle you provide me out

By Adam Keith McElwain 

Copyright Adam Keith McElwain Poetry