My Crime Poem by Peter Madden

i walk the streets...
my face a parody of normality..
the reality is im a prisoner...
screaming within this tainted shell...
restrained by my relentless fears..
that twist my perceptions...

every person i see is not themselves...
but instead appear to me as monsters..
no longer hiding beneth my bed...
childhood nightmares wearing familiar faces...
chasing me through the waking world..

they all look at me as unclean and corrupted im sure...
the apple fallen far from the tree...
my filth and my sin evident for all to witness...
unworthy i walk amoungst them...
poisoning their perfect world...

i pretend to be one of them..
working, smiling, fitting in as best i can..
hiding my shame, my curse...
trying to escape from my past...
from the night my world broke apart..
the night i fell from grace....

it was my fault it must have been...
even though they tell me it was not...
it must have been the evil that was in my heart..
that caused him to do those things to me...
i corrupted him, i am the guilty and impure one...

for if it was not me that drove him to this...
then i am the victim..
a helpless thrall in the face hell..
vunerable to all the horrors of humanity...
and that is a reality i cannot face...
so it must be my fault my crime...
mustn't it?

29/8/12