My Tormentor

Where is my soul, my faith, my reason?
What happened to my bright dream?
I gave it all to you for the promise of uncharted love and adventure.
In return you became bored and threw it all away with broken drumsticks.
You grow and I cling, vicariously needing your hope.
My need equaled only by your resentment.
Haven thrown out all purpose and sanity, I am left a hollow shell, my guts lined with infection, I ache and crave the relief of your touch.
Survival now is my goal, staying alive my only identity.
I lay on the shelf beside magazines, records, drumsticks, hoping to be the possession you reach for.
Your aspirations become my obsession.
Your attention the only nutrition for my starvation.

The stillness of night surrounds me and quiets the throbbing of rotting emptiness
Darkness distorts vision and relieves my eyes, swollen and red from eternal hysteriical tears.
I struggle to remain awake never to give in to the lull of sleep.

There I again find my dreams, wrinkled and torn like wadded up tissues, I open them and again become my own.
I am fearful of the peace of this slumbre for I know that it only lives in darkness and the sun will rise again only to blast away my clouds of contentment,
memory of a dream that was
Again the light will burn my eyes with reality and pierce my wounds with the familiar pain of your indifference.
Again I will seek the safety of your arms only to find the pain of your violent mood.
Again I will find myself despicable and fight to regain your gaze.

written to RS in 1975