Performative, my actions aptly described.
All this to please another, all so they can be bribed
for their time, space and emotional energy,
Jeopardizing my stability, in the hunt for faux synergy.

I need to do more, more, more, and trust in the mirage,
Trust in tugging at the strings of my anchored anxiety.
Holding on to the hate, remembering only those who tried to define my fate.
Trust in clogging my porous heart, the emotions cannot escape,
the mind in a flow state for self-destruction. I hope for freedom for myself.
Is my hunt for validation ever going to be enough?

Till then I run. Run till my legs give out.
Run till my body goes into shock, and my bones,
brittle as they are, turn to dust inside the confines of my body.
It’s the only thing that substitutes the pain,
the grief of abandonment and unacknowledged detachment.
An intrinsic desire to find the basement in an already bottomed valley echoing my mistakes,
my past haunting in repeated layers of sonic sadness.
Is there no winning?

– Ted