The Voice in Your Head

How much time do you intend to spend
holding on to your naïve notions of everlasting happiness?
How much love will you turn away
before you are brave enough to risk it all again?

You took a chance once.
It worked for a while
and then it didn’t.
The hours of waiting alone,
listening for footsteps at the door,
footsteps that never came,
they still haunt you.

So you cling to those memories of pain
that you let define the rest of your life.
You wear a cloak of cynicism
over your shrivelled heart.
Protected.
Safe.
Dead.

***

Image Credit:  迷い子by Jun Kumaori