Words, words, words...

If the words were partial truths and lies interspersed...

Dead air running over vocal chords, worn and impotent from years of outbound deception...

And you take away all of the empty words that were spoken...

Deaf to the touch and vibration and tone of words...

What is left for the senses to observe...

Only actions...

And the behaviors...

And then a discard comes...

The projector hits the end of the reel, the house lights come on...

Revealed in the cold dim light is the mask that fooled that has now been stampled flat and lifeless, and lays on the ground covered in smudge...

A drone, a mirage, a broken mirrored device...

Oh my God is screaming silently in my head...

What, where, when, how, why...

Did it come to this...

When did I lose my grip, my grasp on reality, on sanity...

How did I get so lost and alone, while all the time the "other" was so close at hand...

Where exactly did this all take this turn...

How is it that all of the fears and doubts have come alive, like the long overdue haunting of an ethereal ghost gone incredibly wrong...

How can I even begin to understand, to fathom, to comprehend this ending...

Why do I feel stuck in an overgrown mental jungle, impending doom and facing ruin in all directions, abyssmal loss, and mind numbing screeching born of my self-loathing...

All of this because of words, words, words...

And I sit here stuck, stuck, stuck...

Paralyzed under the vaporous cloud awash with unmet dreams...

That are now dawning as pure fantasies of my willingness to imagine instead of discern...

Telling myself a story based on words, instead of observing the truth born of actions and behaviors...

This is how troubled relationships go bad to worse...

Viewing the projection, and forgetting that somewhere in the shadow lies the projector...

And then the final, single shot hits its mark...

And here I sit, trembling, shaking, suffocating, only to feel flames of discord racing up my throat...

The fuel of my annihilation seems inexhaustible, on the edge of utter destruction, but still my shallow breaths prevail...

Alone, alone, alone I am, so utterly alone...

This was my end...

And, my beginning!

ds