a code

[Sign Of A Flatline]

before i had a different story, but with recent going on's i felt i wanted to have the truth some people don't get protection even when anonymous i added what i cut a few years ago, changed things, and came out with something different that i wasn't sure i wanted to put in the edit. don't really enjoy it but can't say i'm given a choice. so this is it.

In the living room

Next to the fire

Warm, contented

Yet cold and yearning

Craft knife poised

I use those whitehot coals

To slowly tentatively

Clean my blade

My shirt falls to the floor

Revealing pale flesh

Waiting, wanting

Somehow begging

For the blade

My first line

Short and deliberate

An inch of pain

Drawn clean and pure

Another follows

Two holes in my fa?ade

Laying bare my pain

Parading my anguish

Blood congeal

Panic re-lights

The act I frowned upon

the condemnations I passed

all right and all wrong

I never knew it was like this

What else can follow?

Self-contempt, revolution?

Disgust and their ease?

A new understanding comes

I am what I hated

The rest that follow

All merge to one

Shallow cuts

Breaking shallow promise

Now I?m the one begging

for the circle never stops

Loathing to blood to loathing

the cuts too addictive

The lines too reassuring

Pain made measurable

Anguish made tangible

My secret act

My secret hatred

Concealed now

Hidden from all others

In a vain bid

To protect myself

Then that fateful day

When I let my secret run

A once trusted friend

Turning from fear , shock

disgust and disappointment

A betrayal at the worst time

From the worst corner

Deepening the hole

Multiplying the scars

The circle widens

Trust constantly misplaced

And my circle decreases

Fewer left to trust

So many more to fear

Then comes compassion

Support and confidence

An allegiance at the best time

From an unsuspected corner

I?ll be dragged out my hole

Rebuilt by those who love

Compelled through it

Made better made stronger

Pale flesh heals

Friendships don?t

Pain is never forever

Neither are friends

Now maybe someday

I can help another

Break the fa?ade

See the pain

Fix the suffering

Cure the loneliness

And understand the doubt

For a code is created

But those on the other side

A code of conduct

I?ll never be the betrayal

Instead I?ll be the map

For any other lost

Within the labyrinth

Of self harm