Obliterated.

 Shadowed by the shame that shackles us,

in a cage of congealed criminal intent.
The pressure to perform provokes a
particular pain, that is unlike any ache I’ve ever felt.

Whether conceived out of familial duty,
or some sort of filial responsibility,
the feeling that washes over me
feels more like a flood designed
to drown us both.

I yearn for the yesterdays when
my behaviour was genuinely inspired!
Instead of this urgency to act
as a result of our affiliation.

Those days of yore before my dreams
were darkened by deeds overdue.
This obligation is a prison—
an unkind incarceration that
obliterates us from the inside-out.

It erodes our alliance through its
unspoken violence; a silence
that reverberates as deafeningly
as a crescendo of violins.

Obligation is the antithesis
to acting out of adoration;
it is the thief who robbed us,
blindly, of the relationship
that we rightfully deserved.