Self-Malevolence

There are times, some dark moments,

When I cannot tolerate me.

I long to howl,

Wail,

Until the force of the sound

Shreds me into a million pieces.

I rail against myself.

Fuming and burning at all that should have been.

All that is not.

Desiring to plunge a fist into my chest,

Liberating my beating heart from its cage.

Observing its agony for a brief second,

Then, crushing it, watching the blood drip

And pool about my feet.

Maybe then I would not feel this anymore.

This emotional chaos.

I am the sum of all the fears

Fed to me in my lifetime.

A steady diet of ‘You can't.’

Until, with absolute certainty,

I knew that I couldn't.

And now I see that I should have.

I could have.

But exactly how, at this point,

Do I learn to live?

And so I wallow.

Stuck in a quicksand that has consumed,

Swallowed, my life.

Sucking down, deeper

Until just fingertips break the surface now,

Straining,

Trying to keep a grip on my sanity.