minds.

Fractured minds live alone
balancing on their trembling crutches
surrounded by a gaping mob
not knowing how to act.

But those broken by some corruption
by a hatred that slithers through
corroding the bits of heart and brain
that once held a capacity
for love - to love.

These kinds of broken minds
breed in vulnerable places
where the lost and disillusioned
are reeled in by a thread
and they become
trapped.

And I’m scared mine
is of this kind

I'm scared your narrow mind
has narrowed mine.

I have come to hate anyone
who resembles even a fracture
of you, even a moment of similarity
and the thread slices through

But if I give in and allow hate to grow
its little tentacles
I will become you
but worse

I too will claw onto terrible things
reeling them in and becoming

I can't let that happen

So watch me

set out to become great things
better things
whole things

I may fall flat on my face
in front of that dreaded mob
of peanut-crunches
who point and laugh

But at least I tried
a lot harder than you

a phoenix with severed wings
that still takes flight.