I have fought battles terrifying and beautiful and I have been remade as a new man but It’s not enough to get well you’re expected to be penitent for the crimes you committed when you were ill coz there’s no sign of sickness on your skin no, the monsters lurk deeper than that they attack from the inside the pain they inflict cannot be seen it can only be felt all that seems so far away now as if it happened to someone else but I don’t celebrate my victories I hide my face in shame there is no final victory it can all happen again
I was not easy to help
but I was helped for some my
illness was seen a a failure or even
a betrayal but my world was broken and I reached out for a new one no one would condemn a cancer victim
saying ‘he brought it on himself’ but my friends diminished in number those are the perverse mathematics of
life I don’t mind being ghosted I live for myself to hell with everyone else I’ve forgiven those erstwhile friends who could only see the surface of
things I don’t require validation I made it on my own I’m an individual now a man of some renown
we were a pack
and we made meat but we had to
be ruthless with those who could
not we would dance in the sacred
manner horizontally with the shades down private individuals living in a private world
I got the blame when it all fell apart and maybe I deserved it paint
me wicked everyone does it’s easier that way there are too many pigments in the other picture I grieved for that cabal of erstwhile friends and lovers when
they fell on me like wolves to tear
the world apart
