Saboteur

A Poem

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

idealism never suited me
(it never suited me at all) —
and so i walk
into a valley
followed by
the shadow of death

it came to claim me
just like i thought it would —
how i saw in all those days before

no one was waiting for me,
no one was hoping to see me walk free,
no one was rooting for me in the dark

(for the dark is great and expansive —
so, so, so expansive)

and i walked into a pit
that reminded me
of the bottomless lake of fire,
my hands tied behind my back

no one heard a word
from my sorry, bruised mouth —
and my mind was a realm
of terrors all the while

my head hung low,
the tendrils of my hair
making me look even more
like a witch

but i wasn’t
a witch