Lost and Bound

Not sure how to define the process here...lets just call it "cold purge." Some ideas hit me and I needed to get them out. Triple meaning here for me: personal, religious, and secular.

These chains and shackles restrain me from who I want to be,
who I'm destined to become.

They have imprisoned me for so long they have forged themselves to my flesh.

My restraints have become me,
and I them.

Though my wounds be self-inflicted acts of cowardice,
they bleed with a furious intent not of my own making.

The flow of blood stronger than my ability to coagulate
and fight the coming infection.
stripped of pride,
naked to the world,
my weaknesses on public display
for the mockers,
the fools,
and the judges.

Hoisted above masses of familiar onlookers
yet supported by none in my afflictions.

Too long have I called my aching flesh home.
Now I anxiously await demise at the sundown of life.
I will not stay the execution at the hands of my executioner,
he and I being one and the same.

This night I ascend,

my ghost having given up,

on my terms

alone.

by Derek Herzberg

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