Barren.

Sometimes I feel like a slave, one who's been stripped of any meaning, personality, heritage, past -- everything. Except I'm my own jailer and taskmaster. I take these things away from myself, throw them away into some distant corner of my mind until I'm ready to deal with those thoughts, that person, that experience, that other life. Whatever it was, or whatever it might of been that had composed me up until that point. When I'm alone, alone with just myself, and none of these exterior qualities, I feel so empty, so barren, so dead. I feel like sun-baked earth. Outside appearances don't go for much, they just let people assume that I'm something I'm not and give a measure of safety. Most never really bother to get close enough to touch the skin and feel the cracks in my self, physical and in my soul, to know how easy it is for someone to slip inside. And how often that happens to me. How often does someone come inside and stay awhile. How often do I let this happen on purpose. Self-torture, or is it a pathetic way of explaining away how I can shed something and let something else inside? Crawl inside me and die, or crawl inside me and try to be something else. I need some kind of warning, take care my darling, my love poisons, my touch hurts, and my emotions come with two meanings. I'm your double-standard and I'd love to get to know you, or is that hurt you? I never intend for the worst, I never intend for the bad, but seeing patterns of it happen again and again should make me stop. I do try to stop, but I just can't feel alone, and someone, without even meaning it, there's something inside me again. I never am sure how it happens. It's always a surprise. I'm always surprised. I'm my own jailer, and with these feelings I let myself feel. I lock myself up and throw away the key. Knowing full well what the consequences might and could very well be. Self-torture and self-hatred through letting myself feel good. It makes me wonder what kind of person my jailer is, and if he enjoys this, but we're lifelong friends, even if we never speak to each other. He takes care of the things I can't take care of, and I give him the feelings that he can't feel. Slave and jailer, we both love each other.