Let Not the World call me A Fool.

They call me a fool...I see every fracture,
every sharp edge of your love
that cuts my flesh... Let the world keep its judgment, for they have never tasted this particular fire...

This is no accident.
This is a choice...
My daily, conscious decision to stand in the path of your storm
And call it home...

I choose you�"
even as your hands bruise my peace,
even as your silence starves my worth,
even as I shrink
to fit the space you barely offer...

I see the map of your deception; I map the cold, dark oceans of your manipulation.
I feel the razor-wire edges of your neglect,
And yet... I refuse to build a wall... I take the crumbs you throw, pretending they are a feast...Surrendering the core of my being, starving my own soul to keep yours fed...

I have swallowed my boundaries,
drank from the well of your absence,
and called it devotion...

I am fully awake in this nightmare!
I know I am treated as the lowest thing in your world,
A forgotten pet waiting at the door,
And I choose it...Because this tiny bit of closeness, that rare, fleeting shadow of kindness,
is the only oxygen I know how to breathe for the past 8 years...

I know what I am holding.
A flame that warms me
only when it remembers I exist,
a fire that feeds
on the parts of me I cannot regrow...

You are the life-blood. You are the toxic blight.
My addiction to you is a steel cable,
Stronger than any sanity, stronger than the urge to live...

Still,
I stay...

You are my ache
and my answer,
my hunger
and the bread that never lasts...

If I left, I would wither.
So, I stay...

I choose the burning. I choose the pain.
I am yours, completely, devastatingly, yours...

for I am a fool
who knows the truth
and trembles before it...

A fool who feels so deeply
to let go too soon...

A fool who loves
past reason,
past warning,
past self...

Until one day,
this same fire
either consumes me…

Or teaches me
how to finally walk away
without starving...

Do not let the world call me a fool...
Carl Nicolas.