Can’t escape living purgatory,

as the inability to breathe

damns me with inevitable

lasting consciousness.

Each moment I close my eyes,

cancer of reminiscence

burrows somehow acidic

in black shards of unstable mind.

In days of life condemned,

wasting tortuously gradual,

I’ve scarred these wrists— 

succumbed to weeping pain.

 

In all of the years

death was so desperately sought,

pain-pills and alcohol

slowed memories like photographs

mounted in picture frames.

For so long I’ve killed—

every pointless memory of you,

yet I cannot flee misery

in the miracle of resurrection.

Each second I hold my breath—

scraping razorblades

across your face,

memories bleed

wishful death.

Escape me,

drunk and numb;

leave nothing—

traceable in life.

Free me of indulging

pride in remolding you

so ungodly ugly—

with bloodstained razorblades.

By William Andre Sanders