Fallen from grace
What have I become?
An unfamiliar place
I stay though I should run
Unrecognisable
From the girl I was before
Utter loss of innocence
A worldlier aura takes the floor
I know when it began
Not so long ago
When fate dealt me a hand
And I couldn’t take the blow
Since then I’ve just been floundering
Trying to climb up slippery walls
Reassembling the broken pieces
Into some semblance of what I was
I’ll never be the same
The cracks may never heal
Though they’re firm and held together
By something stronger than steel
Yes the ‘vase’ has been restored
But remains intrinsically changed
For once you’ve hit rock bottom
Some residue remains
It seeps into your very core
Polluting what was pure
And no amount of cleansing
Can purge so you’re as before
You lose a piece of your soul
Something innate is torn
Thus ultimately a shadow appears
A scar where you weathered a storm
It changes you in the end
Where you were once carefree
Your aching heart does harden
Into rock where bleeding veins should be
Jaded though not bitter
A faint weariness in the subliminal
You wear a painted smile
Though underneath you succumb to cynical
And thus you act in accordance
With what you feel inside
And adopt associated behaviours
Attracting others who vibrate in kind
This new persona I’ve become
So different from the other one
Is yet another incarnation on this plane
Until I don my chrysalis once again.
Rachel Rhodes 