Poetry & Art

Control

Control opens the door like a long lost friend

A familiar mask with a crooked smile

With words forming broken sentences

To steer my sanity and smear my name

Into a façade I no longer know.

 

I’d die from shame if I could

Drown my anxieties in a hollow creekbed

To lay my happiness to rest in oblivion

Replacing the comfort of control

Slinking down my throat like century-old gin.

 

I’d write letters to who I was

Before the door creaked open

If I cared enough to have a nom de plume

Written in earnest in invisible ink —

I sink beneath the weight of my self-induced world.

 

Every night, I battle the same demon

That murders the true me in cold blood

With broken ice lacing each vein

Freezing me to the depths of my despair —

Controlling me as I control you.

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by Kaylin Staten

Kaylin R. Staten, APR, is an award-winning public relations practitioner and writer based in Huntington, WV with 18 years of professional communications experience. As CEO and founder of Hourglass Media, she uses her compassionate spirit and expertise to delve into the heart of clients’ stories. She is a recovering perfectionist, mental health advocate, wife, boy + cat mom and Leia Organa aficionado.

Learn more at www.kaylinstaten.com.


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