Versions of Betrayal — Jaded

Getting used to a new custom—
built by the version of me
that dares to seek a better self—
feels like betrayal
pressed deeper
into the spine I used to trust.
Familiar rituals, once comforting,
now ache like borrowed sins.
Hopeful beginnings
have made me
strangely unpopular.
He simmers—
quietly boiling in the broth
of your thought process.
He warned you, didn’t he?
Of the storm he’d serve
on porcelain silence.
Don’t act soapy now—
all clean hands and wide eyes—
when his karma
finally came
to call you by name.