I used to sell pieces of my soul for sex,
and a form of love only understood by the lonely,
which is to say everybody.

I no longer sell pieces of my soul,
too consumed with re-creating it from scratch,
sacrificing my sanity instead,
lonely piece by broken piece.

Life marches onward,
some fall upon the path,
few gracefully bound through,
and far more goosestep over them,
grinding the rotting bodies to dust.

The stench of this reality is enough,
to choke those who can smell it but are helpless.
Some wear their government-issued gas masks,
and walk blissfully through hell,
whereas others take off their masks,
only to put them on again so they fit back in.

Reality in raw form has a way of choking you,
until it lobotomizes you with brain damage,
or your body rejects it in violent fits of vomit,
every once and awhile.

Some people don’t handle it at all,
and find themselves dead in the gutters,
from their own hands,
or the hands of another,
when all anybody ever wants,
is to be in the arms of another.