poetry

80

broken record:

do you ever feel like a broken record?
a skipping, screeching loop,
each note sharper than the last.
each turn of the cycle grinding deeper,
carving scars into a melody that never belonged to you.

this isnt music. its madness.
its the same mournful refrain,
spilling through clenched teeth
as i claw at the edges of a world that refuses to change.

i hate it.
i hate them.
i hate this endless churning—
every face, every word,
blurring into the same dull ache of repetition.

they say: “look ahead.”
but how, when the past is a shadow,
stretched over my skin, etched in my bones?
when the evidence of it is written all over me.
how do you ignore the weight of a thousand yesterdays
that press down like hands around your throat?

i hate it.
i hate me.
i hate that i cant break the wheel—
that i cant crack the vinyl under my fist
without it just slicing me open in return.

yes, im used to it.
used to the same tired suffering,
the same tired hope that itll hurt less.
but it doesnt.
it never does.

and they say: “i admire you.”
but those empty words of comfort only make it worse
admire what?
this hollow shell?
this body that doesnt belong to me?
how do they admire something so pathetic.
a dog defends itself,
but me? i sit. i stay.
i do what im told, im nothing but a slave.

i let the world gnaw at me,
until there is nothing left.
until i have no energy to complain
until i can do nothing, but sit there and expire.
fade into the background,
disappear into their shadow.

they tell me nothing is 0%.
that maybe, someday, ill win.
eventually i have to, right?
thats what they think
but the odds are a cruel joke,
and im too tired to laugh.

so instead ill surrender.
not with grace,
not with peace,
not the way they expect me to—
but with the resignation of someone
who has watched the same scene play too many times,
and no longer cares how it ends.