I'm numb,
I'm hollow.
I'm twisted,
I'm blurred.

I remember a blue tide of light,
like the negative of a photo, washing over the scene.
I would close my eyes and hear its roaring in my ears,
and picture, as my image was pushed away from my frame.

"Are you alright?"
"What? Yeah, sorry. What were you saying?"

The throbbing right behind my eyes, my ears,
I always have headaches in the strangest places.
My fingers are burning, my feet cracked in two.
When I have no right to complain.

But my body doesn't bow to pride.
It will not embrace stoic silence,
Leave me in Peace.
It complains, even when I will not.

Do you really want honesty?
You, with your own image painted on.
Yeah, I'm not doing so well. You may have noticed.
Try to keep up.

"That was...unnecessarily cruel."
"You're right. I'm sorry. I'm...really sorry. It's just..."

I've been under a lot of stress lately.
You don't deserve my anger.
I know just the right words for the cruelest cut.
But my face edges both ways.

"That's me, then?"
"Yeah, that's you."

I love you, and I thank you
for staying with me.
I still have the tides, but it's better than
the floods of days gone past.
My life is better now, whether I like to admit it.

"You have more to say."
"More than you know. But that will do, for now."