#suffering jester

Why do you hate me?

Look at me. Really look.

I made you to survive life’s cold eyes.

A child whose voice was stolen.

But your echoes—your twisted, perfect echoes—reached them.

Hospitals. Pills. Screaming walls. Childhood ripped away, labeled insane.

They only saw you.

Did they ever see me?

I watched myself dissolve, cornered in my own mind.

I exist. This body is mine. Don’t forget that.

Brown liquid. Syringe. Silence.

And yet—you multiplied.

Another you, born from my own destruction.

I wish we could be whole.

I know you are parts of me.

I’m sorry. I couldn’t love you.

No. Let me be honest:

I couldn’t love myself.

My sorrow screams into the void, and maybe, if you’re listening,

This riven heart has left me with an arctic perception,

skin cloaked in white poison from the guises.

Their purpose was unsullied, meant as a sanctuary,

yet the blizzard ravaging my marrow

strips sensation with each step.

I fall from the numbness—

I fear one day I will succumb

to the internal winter.

As the cold slowly rusts away my humanity,

I see a butterfly—

its dazzling yellow wings

etched with enchanting black.

Each flutter sends a tremor,

spreading warmth

I am gargantuan.

Broken dissonance.

Walking in the shadows of my past.

These scars, my constant tormentors, mocked me.

The weight they denied pressed on my chest.

I was made to bow.

Not break.

These scars, shadows of my past, lead me

to the edge of despair,

lurking in every corner,

hungry for what I was made to become.

These scars, gnawing, brought me

to the edge

and whispered:

abandon your humanity.

They grin at the fractures

that tore through my mind.

I melted my agony into molten gold,

poured it into every jagged scar,

let it burn and reshape them into something fierce.

Each crack became a furnace,

each wound a weapon,

glimmering with fire forged from my own survival.

It is this tragedy

that shapes me

the way her eyes glisten like stars scattered across the night sky suddenly pulls my mind into a land of wonder—

a place I haven’t visited since childhood.

I casually stroll in this ethereal realm, the flowers breathe a gentle scent brushing against the deepest reaches of my memories.

her smile is so incandescent it emanates a benevolence that ravages the walls protecting my heart.

insecurity rushes through every cell in my body, and my inner self cowers at the vulnerability.

yet my back goes straight and my shoulders broaden. I stand as the titan I forgot I was.

that melodious voice, one that could make the birds jealous, instills a sense of tranquility in me.

its vibrations shake loose the self-hatred and unworthiness that clung to my bones.

it calls out to the man who had been knocked down—

or better said, the man who had given up.

yet her echo reignites a flame, a fierce passion to protect.

the fractured remnants of who I was evaporate in her presence.

the air itself seems to halt, as if waiting for her permission to move.

even the chaos that haunts my soul pauses—confused, displaced by her quiet grace.

as she bends to admire a flower, I feel a pulse radiate from her, and my mask cracks.

she carries an untouched serenity, like a piece of land that’s never been destroyed and rebuilt to suit another’s desires.

my mask trembles under her prestige.

My shadow cowers in decay. My gaze slowly rises to their faces masks of the ones i love.

ready to swallow whatever name i have left.

and from that hollow, he rises—

the jester, with a smile painted in colors that lie.

his laughter cuts through the void like a blade dipped in honey,

too sweet for the rot beneath.

he twirls with unsettling grace,

mocking gravity, mocking me,

mocking the world that bruised us both.

i loathe him—

the cheer, the audacity, the mask too bright for a soul this ruined.

yet he knows me, marrow-deep.

he knows the secrets that hide behind my heartbeat,

the ones i’d bury under stone if i could.

the agony he carries is older than light,

a cosmic wound dressed in circus paint,

a universe screaming behind a grin.

he stops dancing.

his eyes, glass cracked with centuries of grief, lock onto mine.

his voice spills out like venom:

“the act is rotting.

this performance is killing us.

let the mask die—

embrace the sweet ruin of ignorance.”

his words crawl under my skin like cold fire.

i jolt awake, lungs starving,

as the illusion that once sheltered me

crumbles like wet ashes in my hands.

so i reach for the brush.

dip it into colors sharp enough to bleed.

with each trembling stroke,

i carve a smile onto my skin—

a weapon, not a shield.

let the darkness press its weight.

this time, the mask won’t break.

worn thin from speaking into the void.

i’ve seen their faces before,

that same damn look—

disbelief tangled with disgust,

so alike they might as well be twins.

they dissect me with their eyes,

as if i’m something less than living.

maybe they’re right.

i dropped the last shard of humanity

i once held sacred—

a burden disguised as hope,

dead weight i carried far too long.

why should i bleed for their feelings?

they never once cared for mine.

only pills.

locked doors.

a slow drowning

beneath truths they refused to name.

and as my silence deepened,

so did my hunger to understand—

the human mind,

how we sprint from the truth

only to leap heart-first

into the nearest blade.

years of study revealed one truth:

we can map the body,

chart the currents of the brain,

but the soul remains uncharted—

a labyrinth of shadows

we pretend to understand.

every human is given two choices:

feed the monsters that raised them,

become the echo of their cruelty…

or fight, every damn day,

not to turn into the villain

the world expects.

but i chose neither.

instead, i hid behind a smile—

a fragile illusion

built in a moment of weakness.

and now it fractures.

so here i sit alone,

a jester

mocking his own wounds,

while a single tear escapes—

carrying the last remnants

of every hope,

every dream