Ripped Apart Poem by Robin Bennett

When life leaves you hanging-
In gallows night-fallen grasp
Then betrayal comes calling
Stone in hand, at my cloudy
Fortress just a house of glass

Illusion in hand, my heavy footsteps-
recoil in fear from summer.
A high citrus sun drips bitterness
and rains down malignant clear lies

Hide where everything can find you-
Can you see me tucked neatly away
Where our initials live chipped in bark
Now an obscene sight, if I may say so

I paid for my choices in spades-
Never once did I enjoy playing poker
With you or your sword wielding friends
You always folded and scurried away

I'm left to sit stony faced, built with cracks-
clutching tight my strange luck and black cat
pondering my future while standing alone
under this vacant ladder in the empty library

At times I catch my mind searching for you-
Then my disgruntled alarm begins to sound
Warning me survival is for the fittest
Certainly that disqualifies me

I see and hear the noise of my very own voice-
Nothing but barrels full of uncommon nonsense
Driving me to the outskirts of a wayward exile
While death follows a bit closer with each passing year

So see, you left me with something close to nothing-
Which is more that I possessed at the start
I thought the iceberg to be an hallucination
Until it ripped a huge part out of me