i've still got the burns

this happy hope, living in my mind, teasing me with what might be, what i lost and what i might get back, all the while clouding my reason, making me believe in myself as i walk towards another cliff.

i hate hope, i despise it with a loathing that borders on visceral,

waiting for it to walk back into the squalid place where i hide with its scents of flowers 

and its rays of sunlight. 

waiting here with a wooden bat pierced through with rusty nails.

waiting for that bastard hope to dare to enter.

building a better beast

feel it?
there.
just below the bones, the meat.
i know.
it's strange, still there after all this time.
a slow, steady throb beneath the surface.
boom. boom. boom. boom.
steady, still dying but there.
years ago i thought we'd seen the last of it,
heard the last traces, lost somewhere in the mazes,
wounded beyond all capacity to heal.
the stains still color the stones brown.
we killed it or so we thought, torn to pieces and left to die
but it fights on.
no wonder it hurt so much to wake this morning.
bastard heart.