The Good, The Bad, And The Lost…

They think it’s all floaty, something dreamy and light,
A vague little absence that tucks out of sight.
They miss the mechanics, the price that is paid,
The deadbolt defense that the psyche has made.
Emotional amnesia, a clinical shield,
The heavy-wrought armour my disorders wield.
The present is slipping away as it lands,
A vanishing trick in unbreakable hands.
What good is an action, a deed, or a day,
When tomorrow arrives and it’s melted away?

To others, a scent can awaken the dead,
A song brings the past rushing into their head.
But smells hold nothing, and music falls flat,
My mind has no pathway for moments like that.
No echo of laughter, no cheer in the air,
The years leave no footprint, the seasons are bare. 
A silence that settles without any sound,
Where someone is living but no trace can be found.

Good things happened, like the birth of my son,
A beautiful miracle, beautifully done.
I know there was terror, a hospital bed,
The weeks in the balance, the things that they said.
I know it occurred, but the feeling is cold,
A blank in the ledger where life should unfold. 
I’d weep for the years that were stolen away,
If silence hadn't locked the tears at bay.
For all of the feelings that quietly died,
The life I surrendered, the history denied.

The bad cannot touch me, the trauma is gone,
The ghosts of addiction no longer live on. 
But sleep has a way of unlatching the door,
And dreams drag me back to the needles and floor.
While daytime is distant, a phantom and thin,
The dream world feels solid, a heartbeat within.
I wake in a panic, filled with despair,
Believing the craving, believing the scare. 
Until reality shatters open the spell,
And hands back the emptiness guarding the shell. 

A mind stripped away like a soulless machine,
All memories intact but emotions wiped clean.
I know I have laughed, and I know I have wept,
I know every promise I've broken or kept.
But knowing's a shadow, a wraith of a thing,
Without any pulse or the warmth it should bring. 
Where does the protection go far past the line?
When stories are hollow and nothing is mine.
The armour takes everything, light and the dark,
And leaves you with a life that is empty and stark.