"Mental Warfare" by James Archer

Mental Warfare

Are you free

Or are you trapped

Am I talking to you

Or are you talking back

To the voices in your head

That sews the needle of doubt

Through the quilt of shame and

Dead memories

That you look back on every once in a while

And every once in a while is yesterday

And the day before that.

You’ve put your soft heart into a kiln

Hardening it, so that it won’t break easily

And yet you’re waiting for it to fall and crack and break

Through the abyss of love and hatred

And maybe you think love is hatred

Because each time you’ve loved

You have hated

Yourself

And your head, and your thoughts

And the people all around you who are

Happier than you, think less than you,

Have fewer “tendencies” than you do.

You ache for the pain to subside

Of course for it to have subsided means

For your grave to be filled

as You are choke on the air

You once breathed with happiness

And optimism but now

Your tears are as sour as your soul

And as cold as your heart.

Every time your eyes are closed

You invite the darkness that’s already in your soul

Because you believe that the light is gone

Just like the life you knew way back when you

Never thought about it because you never had a

Reason to break down and

Sink into the floor where you’d become

One with the world and one with the

Blood that your desperately trying to

Stop from giving your life and feelings

Something of better days.

Most of all you write this down for another time

With the scratching of the pen matching the scratching in your

Mind, but you don’t itch it,

Not now, not yet, you’re hoping not yet,

you’re hoping to never scratch the eternal itch

because that’s just war between you and your soul

Your heart and your mind.

That’s just common war among

Rare people with rare self-conviction