Month: February 2022

Which One?

Have you met yourself, no actually met yourself?

No this isn’t another bored metaphor for finding oneself,

Have you stood and looked yourself in the eyes when you’ve hated yourself more than America hates peace?

Have you stood beside yourself in the dark and could still see the twisted frown your own jaw struggles to keep fixed?

Have you witnessed yourself witness?

I have looked at myself in my reflection…both of us staring into the mirror trying to discern which monster we were going to choose that day,

One good days, I can manage to trap the bigger monster inside the bathroom and barricade the door,

…it’s like trapping an active shooter in the small space where he cannot further worsen the conditions of others’ existence,

But I am never alone…the man travels in my mind belted to the back of my head, unseen but secured and ready to speak whenever the slightest inconvenience falls at my feet.

What happens when I come home?

Oh, I unblock and unlock the door and prepare for my daily execution,

I knell slowly to my knees and stare myself straight in my eyes while the blade of my crowded loneliness glides across my scratchy throat,

I ceremoniously bleed out on my dirty carpet before I close my eyes one final time for that day.

I wake up in my bed and I try again, in hopes, that someday when I come home I will have someone to defend me against myself,

In hopes that one day I won’t have to be the smaller man and accept defeat every time I go to rest,

I never sleep, I only wake up,

Unrested,

And mentally sore-

unready to battle again.