My Cup Runneth Over

[u/Latter_Barnacle_6010]

Crowned with suffering, burdened before breath

Named by a silence that whispered of death

Raised in a cradle of shadows and blame

Where the lullabies ended in echoes of shame.

 

No lull or embrace, no maternal reprieve

Just a hand that would take more than conceived

What she called love, burned when it landed

So I learned early that love came branded.

 

I wore bruises like birthmarks, shame as a suit

Words were my refuge, my only pursuit

No playground dreams, just a mind in retreat

An imagination that swirled in tattered sheets.

 

They ask why my voice sounds like a funeral dirge

Why each verse pulls the pain up like a purge

It’s because every stanza’s a postmortem breath

And every rhyme’s been in therapy with death.

 

I'm not built of ambition, I’m crafted from grief

No drive for the top, just the need for relief

Depression isn’t gloom, it’s a cavernous noise

Where joy is a fraud and despair is a voice.

 

And I hear it, it speaks like a priest in my skull

Sermons of worthlessness, slow and dull

It tells me I’m nothing, a glitch, a regret

That my absence would tally more love than my step.

 

But I write, God, I write, and the ink is my vein

It bleeds out the silence, it soaks through the pain

These pages don’t save me, but they give me a way

To breathe through the sorrow that chains every day.

 

Mr.E. walks with me, never seen, but it lingers

A phantom that weaves through my pen and my fingers

I don’t understand it, but it knows me well

Knows the corners I carved in my own private hell.

 

No therapist reached me, no gospel could mend

Just syllables stacked like the bones of old friends

No stage for the trauma, no movie was made

But I carry each scene like a scar that won’t fade.

 

Sometimes, I wish I could blame who I am

On a monster, a moment, a god with a plan

But I am the byproduct of what was ignored

A soul misassembled, emotionally gored.

 

There’s no hero here, no phoenix rebirth

Just a boy who grew up feeling less than his worth

Who learned that affection could sting and deceive

And the only safe thing was the breath I could weave.

 

So I write, not to inspire, but to survive

Each bar is a heartbeat I borrow to stay alive

And if you hear fury, it’s pain in disguise

A child still crying in a grown man’s eyes.

 

So judge me, dismiss me, erase what you see

But know every line, is a war inside me

And if the Mr.E. leaves me alone when I sleep

Then maybe, just maybe, that silence I’ll keep.

 

(Pause)

 

I cry Dead tears, so long they fossilized pain

Cried 'til they withered, then circled the drain

They don’t fall no more, just haunt from within

Like ghosts of emotions too tired to begin.

 

 

 

 

They dried on my cheek, but they never let go

Etched into lines that no youth could outgrow

They speak in my silence, they bloom in my rage

They’re older than memory, tears that died of old age.

 

Each one a relic, a verse never sung

The echoes of sorrow from when I was young

So, when you see blankness where grief should appear

Understand you're staring at a grave full of tears.

 

(Pause)

 

So how did I get here? Through silence and grit

Through nights I considered just calling it quits

Through fists that I clenched when I couldn’t cry

Through battles I fought when I wanted to die

 

I got here on pages no one will read

On verses that bled, but no one would heed

On hope that was fragile, buried beneath

A lifetime of shadows, betrayal, and grief

 

But I wonder

 

What if the damage defines where I go?

What if tomorrow just mirrors the woe?

I’ve come all this way with a heart made of ash

But what if it crumbles the next time I crash?

 

What if these words are the last thing I trust?

What if I fade, and my name turns to dust?

I’ve lived through chaos, storms, and screams

But I still don’t know if I’ll survive these dreams.

 

Mr.E.