I tend to feel like myself, most

Times I wake up and I can’t tell

That anything is different. Truth

Be told there isn’t a difference at all.

I want to think that He is other than me

But, deep down I know we are tied

Together. I pull away and slingshot

Like a rubber band right back into old habits.

Days go by and I wonder when the elasticity

Will give out

It’s going to happen, just as it has before.

I go out and find a better band to bear

The bruises that belie my better sense of being.

And it’s always a surprise!

It never should be; I can feel Him well before his

Arrival. He comes to sever the ties I make

To keep Him at bay. He should know better.

When I was young, He would come and I would bat

Him away like a playful kitten. Calling Him nonsensical

And irrational, I held all the cards and He could barely

Play. Now that age has worn on my ego and esteem

He rises like a fanciful dream, whispering horrid thoughts

Into my head. Through all the years He learned to gamble,

Which gambits were the best to ply at my mind. Cracking

My resolve until there is but a mass of unrecognizable energy.

He has a name, but I won’t say it here

Names hold great power you see, and it is my humble

Opinion that he holds too much already.

I usually win the fights he starts but there are parts

That scare me. And yet I push on and on and off

Though many still would scoff, at the nature of it all.

I build walls of emotions and fences of fortitude

Whilst I stack the bricks of my empathy and shout

“I will not be like Him!”

And he comes like he always does, rending my hard

Work asunder in a blaze of thunder that rivals Zeus himself.

But in between the cracks in the concrete and the chips in the walls,

Is a structure left standing in defiance

For I will not give compliance

To Him.