This is a free-verse poem, so as you will see, it has no rhyme scheme or structure. It may make it a little strange to read at first! Here I've written on my own interpretation on self-inflicted injury and harm. This is something that I, personally, have not practiced, but it's been in my life for a portion of it. It's of someone desperately attempting to ease their mental pain through physical pain in order to prevent otherwise inevitable suicide. Again, this is not of personal experience, but there are people very close to me who have, and still do, go through this very misunderstood practice.

Sacrifice

Darkness is a cancer,

for once you lose your light,

it consumes everything around you.

I stand on a thin line,

neither here nor there,

but somewhere in the middle...

undecided...

Perhaps I'm waiting,

waiting for someone 

to widen the line on which I stand

so that it no longer cuts,

and I am no longer teetering.

Someone to flatten the ground 

on which I stand...

balancing...

balancing with my wings stretched wide

holding me up,

wings made of crumbling marble

and blackened with soot

from the fire below

that would, too, consume me

should I ever lose my balance...

But the line on which I stand

is so thin and my support so weak.

Under my marble wings

my knees tire.

I struggle to stay upright

fighting my own mind,

my own mind begging me to give up.

Why don't I give up?

Because those fires give me light,

and despite the utter pain it gives me,

the light keeps that darkness away.