People say that misery loves company.

I don't agree.

Misery worships solitude,

That is the only way it thrives,

In the darkness of your heart,

The recesses of your mind.

It stalks you,

Follows you into the places that you would not dare bring anyone other than yourself.

This is what misery loves,

The dark, the lonely, the lost, the forgotten.

It uses you and abuses you through these fragments of your life.

Warps your mind,

Twists it,

Until you can't recognize yourself.

You no longer belong to yourself,

But to the fluctuating nothingness inside your body.

You've lost yourself.

And you're not sure how to find yourself again,

So you leave.

You leave with no intention of returning,

But that's not what you tell people.

You make believe that you're alright.

As a kid you were always good at magic,

Maybe it's time for your greatest trick of all.

The final act.

To disappear.

But maybe you'll change the trick.

You'll find your way to a place where you're comfortable,

Where your heart and mind still labour in tandem to keep you alive.

Or, well, whatever you've been doing for years.

Because you know that this can't be living,

For if it is,

You'll end it yourself.

But it's not,

You know this as an absolute fact,

All because you remember back to before you lost that piece.

The piece that had been your heart.

Your little clockwork angel.

The angel that helped you through your life,

Brought you up to the high stature you've enjoyed for your life.

But they left.

And now you're alone.

You've been abused and abandoned,

They ripped your heart into pieces as you watched them walk away.

But you couldn't stop going,

Couldn't freeze,

Because the world was still turning around you.

It was all you had left,

You had to enjoy it.

They brought you to the pinnacle,

Then tore you down to the very bottom.

But you continued.

Built your own name,

One that you weren't quite happy with,

But loved all the same in a self-destructive way.

And here it is.

Throughout all of that pain,

All of that horrific pain,

You have found your Eden.

It's dark and dingy and not at all what you expected,

But you love it,

All in that same twisted way that you've come to accept.

You don't like it,

But you know that it's all that you have.

It's the only way you know how to feel anymore.

And so you come to the end,

Or so you think.

Really it's just a warped and beautiful beginning to something new and wondrous.

You wonder,

Not about anything in particular at first,

But it soon gives way to fear.

Fear in the face of change.

All of a sudden,

You don't want to leave.

You find that you think you can bring yourself to love your little warped existence.

And then,

You see a beautiful smile that nearly knocks you off your feet,

And you stop.

You freeze at the start of the motion that will allow you to run for your life,

And you look.

You watch the person that you believe will eventually decide your fate,

And you think.

You look them dead in the eyes and smile,

And you wonder.

You try to figure out why this person would mean anything to you,

And you ponder.

You soon find out that you don't care,

And you don't.

You just let your eyes drift back to that oh so glorious smile,

And you grin.

You find that you might just be happy with wherever this journey decides to take you,

And you turn.

Yeah, you think about everything that you suffered through to get here,

Everything you've lost,

Everything you couldn't bear on your own,

Everything that has become warped in your own head,

Everything that every person has taken away from you,

Everything that they've given,

You have a new life laid out in a pretty road in front of you,

So you take the first step,

And you smile.