Walking Oblivion

I became acquainted with my shadow at a young age,

the dark cloud that followed me around,

cold and uninviting with her poisonous glares

pulling me back as I tried to chase the sun.

He burned me,

and she pulled me back into her cool abyss,

mending the scars and blanketing me

to protect me from the rays.

While yes, I stayed safe from the harsh warmth outside,

inside I found a different darkness,

coming and going like waves against the shore.

Just when I thought I'd escaped it,

it would all come crashing back against the rocks.

She said "this is the price to pay for my salvation,

"I will keep you safe, child, but you must give back to me".

Was if a fair deal? I soon learned, not really.

Did I shake hands with the devil and accept her bargain?

I didn't know how to protect myself from the world,

what was I to do?

A few pieces of myself, given up to protect

every piece of me from a much more gruesome fate

at the hands of a utopia that I was not allowed to enter?

First it was my warmth.

She said, "if you are to live in my abyss,

you must be as cold as I."

Shut off from others,

plunged into eternal nightfall.

I became one with the moon, but

at the cost of my inner sunlight.

Next, my heart.

Passion lost to a war against emptiness.

Hopes and dreams thrown away,

for whatever I could get,

whatever I could handle,

which was never a lot.

Always the bare minimum,

but forward I pushed on.

Finally, my being.

Our souls became one, melding

like a puddle falling prey to land.

The final drip, drip, drip

of everything that makes me

now a victim to her umbral nature.

Everything revolved around her,

and I merely spun around on my orbit,

stuck

walking the path of oblivion.