Invisible Martyrs

In plain sight
But I'm not supposed to look
It's not allowed
No, it really isn't
I'll put my glasses on
So I can see clearly
Though I'm not supposed to see
Nobody will know
Then maybe it's okay
If I look at a reflection
Even if it's blurry
It's still you.

    There are many things I do in secret—in the absence of you.
    
    In secret I contemplate.  Not meandering thoughts brought on by monotony or the inconsistent trivialities of life which charge us little consequence.  In secret I  contemplate your  weaknesses which I chronicle in my mind; additions to my private anthology of your every misstep that is day-by-day becoming my own literary masterpiece.

    In secret I plot.  I have discovered much delight is to be found in detail and variation of means to an end though I dare not execute this wanton cowardice beyond the borders of my handmade idealism.  In all actualities it will never be more than an inside joke I tell myself in the spaces between self-restraint and desperation.  It any case it certainly helps pass the time.

    In secret I spy with my little eye the things you do when you think only I am not watching.   How careless you are in your ways (or how low is your opinion of me?) that you do not even conceal your own transgressions.  Instead you parade them around for all your disciples who offer you the “good ol' boy” praise that reckless men are warrant to.  I then wonder what they would offer me.

    In secret I bleed as easily as others do from all the invisible wounds you have methodically inflicted on my heart; clean cuts with near surgical precision that would best even the steadiest hand.  Of course I would not expect less from you, who wallows in a self-absorbed perfection that is truly your mark.

    In secret I die a little each day.  Just a little.  Small enough to escape your notice.  Perhaps only when my heart has stopped completely and I am free from your murderous presence will my own withering existence no longer be untold.  Then, you will know me and I can finally be happy.

Control: I would love to own you.  On a night when everything is covered in the darkness that emanates from my soul, I will overpower you as I have dreamt of for so long and take you against your will; forcing myself upon you so that you and I become one.  Then may the world see me—the true me.  The me I have longed to become.  But alas you are but a woman who dances bewitchingly before my eyes, enveloping me in your too sweet scent, begging me with your eyes to take you into my arms and make you mine completely.  But as I reach out to touch you, your skin, so soft and delicate, slips through my fingers like fine silken lace.  You laugh at me, a sad sight to behold in my handmade desperation. But before you dance away you look over your shoulder and blow me a kiss that promises another chance another day.  Then I die an agonizingly slow death at the hands of lost opportunity.  Why tempt me so if you will not be mine?  With you I may own the world.  But you will not, so I will not. 

The glimpse of you, like looking into the Sun, hurts my eyes.  You are much too bright to share this plane with such a shadow like me.  The brighter you burn the smaller I become. And when you reach that peak, your highest high, it takes near all my will to keep from disappearing beneath you.  But when you begin your descent behind the waiting horizon, I become, I grow, I escape you.  Though what cheer does it bring? I am still in the dark wallowing and now without you.  But at twilight, when you touch my ascending form as you slowly depart, we meet, share a kiss and a brief embrace before you leave.  Tomorrow you return, and you will rise as I subside, but I would rather this than not to have you at all, for I cannot be without you. 

You wear your shadows well, my friend.  So much so that your need to hide in darkness is moot, futile even, for it has become a loathsome cape you cannot shed nor mend.  It has grown over you like a second skin, rotting your flesh and suffocating your will.  Or has it finally set you free?  I know that you have longed to separate yourself from the dregs of humanity: the mindless cows that travel in droves seeking nothing more than their fill.  You laugh at them.  But secretly you weep for their ignorance; their loss.  But that should not be your worry.  That is the least of your worries, for you have traveled to dimensions other than this and suffered as other have not.  It is you I secretly weep for. I know it is neither pity you seek nor understanding.  You are the Devil King.  Evil incarnate and insanity unleashed upon the helpless and unsuspecting.  But what of you?  Perhaps redemption or absolution awaits you on the other side.  But likely not.  Your arrogance towards life and insatiable lust for love defies the logic of self-preservation.  Some days you seem like you want to die.  But it escapes you for you have crossed that threshold and yet you do not know it.