Seduction of sleep

I keep waiting for it all to be different.
I keep waiting to wake up, and find it all solved
but nothing has changed.
I am still here.
dragging my feet through
another day

and slowly, day by day
as it gets worse, the pain
builds and becomes all
I can feel, all I can see
half numb, half in shock

and I can see it, I can feel it
I can touch the handle on
the door
to get myself out of here
but as I reach out
my hand slips away,
and I close my eyes
and turn my back.
ghostlike strides to make myself
hurt more, lie more,
shattering lives along the way

and through the day
filled with banal torture
and everyday homicide
I count the minutes till my next
breath, count the seconds until
my fear will let up long enough
to hate myself.

and I find more and more
of my time filled with delicious
fantasies, where I lay
unconscious and free, bleeding
but alive, bruised, broken but smiling.
and it is not defeat I fear anymore
nor the loss of self, or pride.
or loneliness. It is not
the selfishness and
evil of my heart. Not the loss of limb
or even death that holds me back.
I can accept any of that.
But what I cannot let go of
is my desire to suffer,
I cannot release
my perfection of martyrdom
I will not let my desire for happiness
smear the beautiful tapestry
my pain has created for so many years

and this is my life
a life I have chosen
no one keeps me here but myself
that is the beautiful irony.
hell is a cell where they hand
you the keys, but you do not
have the courage to use them.