Me Two

I live two lives.
One is phony,
one is real.
One is exciting and uplifting,
the other is demeaning and shameful.
One is talk and fine words, but is hollow, empty, shallow, lacking power or force.
The other is secret and hidden and enslaves me with powerful chains I cannot break.
One is ephemeral, unreal, unreachable, wishful thinking, pie-in-the-sky, leaving me filled with desire, but with no hope.
The other is very real, familiar, safe, the "real me" in my true exposed ugliness, but it leaves me filled with loneliness and fear.
The fear of one is excitement.
The fear of the other is dread.
Mired in muck with no hope of anything changing, life is just putting in time, making due, trying to survive with the least amount of damage possible, lost in the "darkness of futility." All the hope and desire of the "other" life, the pretending and endless talk, it gnaws and aches, it is painful. I am weary of it.
One or the other, hot or cold.
Authenticity.
I am sick of this wasteland in the middle.
Where is the "light of victory?"
Lead me out.