SAVING

 SAVING

Perceiving a famine of confidence and charisma,
She drifts through life, a ghost among the vibrant,
Her steps hesitant, her voice a muted whisper.
She watches others glow with effortless charm,
Their confidence a feast she cannot taste,
Their charisma a fire she cannot borrow. She seeks out captivation in others,
Drawn to those who shine where she fades,
Their allure a mirror to her own lack.
She lingers in their orbit, a moth to their flame,
Hoping their light might pierce her shadowed self,
Yet finding only echoes of her own emptiness. Self-esteem has its own external locust of control,
A plague of doubt that gnaws at her core,
Stripping her bare beneath its relentless hum.
She surrenders to radicals, fierce and unyielding,
Their approval a balm for her fragile worth.
With fiery tongues and iron wills, they beckon,
Demanding followers for their shadowed deeds—
Dirty work stained with secrets and sacrifice,
Tasks she takes up to prove her fleeting value. The self within, parasitic, searches desperately for a host,
A hollow shell craving another's pulse.
She latches to their creeds, their causes,
Letting their convictions seep into her veins,
A transfusion of purpose not her own.
She becomes their echo, their shadow’s shadow,
Her identity a leech upon their strength. Choices latch onto skin, indelible and raw,
Each step a scar, each pledge a wound.
She wears their decisions like a branded mark,
Their will etched deep into her flesh.
No thought is hers alone; no path unwritten,
Her life a canvas painted by their hands. Her mouth, though usually silent, spews laughter and vomits damnation,
A quiet tongue unleashed in their presence—
Laughter spills, brittle and forced,
A mask to hide the void within.
Then comes the venom, a torrent of scorn,
Words not hers but theirs, hurled forth
To curse the world they bid her despise. She has a willingness to participate in all things without limits,
A soul unmoored, adrift in their tide.
She leaps into their schemes, no hesitation,
No boundary too sacred, no act too dark.
She builds their altars, spills their ink,
Tells herself it’s meaning, not servitude,
Yet the truth festers beneath her skin—
It’s their nod she craves, their fleeting grace. No consideration to morality or consequential distraction,
She blinds herself to the wreckage left behind,
To the lives unmade by her borrowed hands.
Morality is a ghost she cannot face,
Consequences a storm she refuses to see.
She dances on the edge of their abyss,
Chasing the warmth of their fleeting favor,
A puppet strung tight by their whispered praise. In the stillness, when their voices fade,
She feels the parasite stir, restless and cold,
A self not hers, a life half-lived.
She wonders if she might reclaim her skin,
Peel back the layers of their hold,
But the mirror shows a stranger’s eyes,
And the radicals’ chains are forged too deep. So she lingers, bound by her own hunger,
A famine unhealed, a locust untamed.
Her days stretch thin, a threadbare tale,
Woven from others’ dreams and rage.
And though the cost looms, heavy and near,
She cannot turn from the host she chose—
For without them, she fears,
She is nothing at all.