Take This

Take my guilt,

there's plenty

I owe, and

to spare.

Take my heart,

for there's nothing

left inside,

for any to care.

Take my pride,

for it's been lost

years ago when I chose

to stay and fight on.

Take my hope,

for any of it

for our better lives

is dead and gone.

Take my future,

because all it is

is a litany

of unending strife.

Take my validity,

because nothing else

matters to you

but your unyielding self.

Take it all,

there is nothing left

but what you take,

and that stays till death.

(c) Tortured Cyclone 2017

My Responsibility

It is my choice

to stay and fight on,

though every cell says

I should be long gone.

It is my debt

I have chosen to pay,

and so I remain

day after day.

It is my love

that is never believed,

because how do obligations

come into being?

It is my responsibility

to be your husband,

which I strive to be,

unsuccessfully.

(c) Tortured Cyclone 2017

The Tease

The Tease


Your game is madness,
trying to dispel your sadness
and hatred of your life,
getting back at he who made you his wife
in ongoing campaigns of marital strife
by playing the game of hearts,
never caring who you tear apart,
hoping from the start
in the digital Sodom
to taste the forbidden
and experience things hidden
from your world of just existing
that seems to be mindless twisting
on the gallows of discontent,
for truth is evident,
this depraved descent
is to find the one
who makes you come undone,
with debauched rites
and possessive fights
and cruel might,
making you a slave
with the gift that you gave,
unknowing, falsely brave,
your happiness buried in an early grave
He showed you how much
by dint of his touch
that you are by so far
the wicked person you think you are.
And those you touch
who aren't good enough
you discard their broken souls,
in your attempts to make your mind whole,
you broke them like pottery bowls
and crushed them under your feet.

(c) Tortured Cyclone 2017

Who Am I?

I am not a good man.

There is no virtue in me that is anything but accidental - a mishap of incidental proportions. My flaws are myriad and manifest, and the weight of my sins make the earth groan beneath me. If I say I do good, there is no truth in me, because doing good is counter to my deepest self.

What right do I have to say I am virtuous, when all I do is driven by ego and self-interest? When forced into self-reflection, it is all I can do to not vomit in disgust at my paltry efforts at virtuousness. Naught I do, but it comes to ill and harm.

I cry to the heavens - where is the justice that I have health, when better people do not? Why should I have prosperity when worthy folk go without? Why do I possess these gifts of understanding, of artistry, of wit, but have naught of worth to create thereby?

After all, what am I but another fallen soul?

Rain of Hopelessness

It falls,
trickling
like the failing
pulse
of heaven,
the weeping
armies
of Glory
grieving
mankind's fall,
the last drops
of hope's
life blood
bleeding out,
leaving
a barren,
dry sky,
filled
with despair,
the personification,
seasonal affecting,
of the wasteland
that is my soul.