There’s a tangle in my mind

I call the jungle

Filled with regret and sharp worries;

I see you in it sometimes;

Others it is you.

At times there is no mind,

Just the entity beholding me, bewitching me,

Bespoken entry lay you, bricks on the walls of my mind

You infiltrated.

I don’t speak, only cry out

As you numbly take hold of me,

As everything but logic welcomes you,

The tragedy you bring with you, do

Please leave.

Though I’ll just yank you back again,

And the strings, heartstrings you use like a puppeteer, 

To command me when 

I thought I was in command,

When I was the one in charge,

When I thought I’d gained the upper hand…

But you’re taller than me.

You always had the upper hand, I’m too small, too weak and frail,

To deny your hand, your words.

Though you treat me so senselessly, I try to make sense of your jungle,

Of my pain you hurl, of the fragments of my soul you take apart

Like a puzzle, I’m puzzled-

Who am I

To you?

Am I even someone?

Am I man, am I reason, or am I

As senseless as this poem, built on

Sparse thoughts, nights you seem to forget

Or you didn’t experience at all.

Maybe I forget it’s my jungle, and not yours,

And though you climb through my branches again

And again

And again

And again

Till your image is scabbed and bruised

In my mind.

I stay clean

In yours.

I stay untouched

In yours.

I stay protected in my longing

In yours.

Perhaps I am not the center of your jungle

As you are in mine.