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.