Nothing is comforting
Nothing soothes
Drugs or company
Work or booze.

Nothing is satisfying
Nothing lifts
This gnawing amplifying
Feeling of shit.

It’s very existence
Is grotesque to my brain
As I keep a calculated distance
From the most worn out of games.

Yet here it sits
Arresting my thoughts
It won’t be dismissed
It cannot be fought

It sits and it gnaws
Torturing my brain
With unanswerable questions
It joys in relaying.

Its presence is unwanted
I have not the desire or need
But here I am haunted
By a guest that won’t leave.

I am like the drug user
No longer experiencing the high
Yet suffers the chains of the familiar
For the dread of goodbye.

My chains are my drug
The most abstract of ties
For my drug is love
And that’s a drug you can’t buy.

It offers no buzz
Only an unshakeable ache
For a love unreturned
Is the heaviest of weights.

I am aware of its futility
I am in on the jest
Yet a thing I can’t touch, hear, or see
Touches me, and is as real as it gets.

I know it exists
For I’ve tried hard to deny it
And yet it persists
Despite my refusal to try it.

I was happier before
I could mock at its name
But the sneaky ruthless bastard has me caught
In the most heartless of games.

It’s a game you can’t leave
Until it’s said it’s done
And from what I can see
At times you may lead, but it can never be won.

© Daniel Breslin