my shroud

"my shroud"
there's a darkness that follows me,
its as if though it flows with me,
     like a cape attached at the neck,
          with all its glory
               draped over my face
but worn as anguish,

it hangs heaviest
when happiness
seems to linger in the air,

never allowing the breeze to touch it
as it wraps itself around me,
     cloaking me in despair,

its intentions and desires are all I feel
     and I fear
once it no longer finds my misery flavorful
it will abandon me,
knowing it took everything it could from me,
leaving me shattered and naked,
doing all the hurt it could do,
leaving behind an empty soul
that never again will be able to feel anything,
nor remember a time beyond this emptiness,

left to dwindle away into the vast blankness
to become a shroud of my own,
to feed on the anguish of others
so that I may once remember
what it felt to feel anything.
-Armando Torres