catharsis pt. dos

i never meant it
to stand by because i was too afraid

but here i am
wallflower with twelve foot roots
i can't hardly stand ~ to pull myself out
move to center
that would be suicide

so i let my roots rot deep
struggling without sunlight or space is easier
than uprooting this self
from this place and
this way of believing

i could choose to do this differently
is that a reality?
or a realistic fantasy
which i peddle to myself for guilt by the hour, roundtrip

i want to wake up
loving my skin
loving the flesh that grows and diminishes
and shakes
like a living thing

i want to wake up sure
that i can do this thing
that i can make pieces fit together
and grant my own wishes

but i can't

or don't

or won't

i hold my flesh between my hands
a thousand dissonant rhythms of how
i should could tried left altered incised exorcised gave up
because it rules me

i should love the skin muscle sinew that stands my feet on the ground nourishes my blood which pumps my heart and puts electric life into my brain to tell my fingers mouth face what to say

i could pretend that it didn't matter to be different to be ashamed to be used to be judged to be too much or not enough to be not right in molecular certainty

i tried to let life carry away a disease of decay and it pumped me up but i didn't say i wanted to stay, so i learned a new escape

i left hoping. and then i left hope when abandoned by myself every couple days, where do you go? i am so alone that i don't exist, you see, that's how i want it

i altered my vision of self to transcend a scope so narrow of all these expectations piled on, but the transcension itself became a self i aspired to be, i forgot to leave me out of the equation and those ego intentions burn so brightly i'm the moth now, ready to be burned by me me me

i incised a line into my stomach, and then my thigh, which reminds me that this is real but only that real is here and here is hell and its so intolerable that i cover my wounds in shame and put a smile on my face

i exorcised the left-ear-corner-clipping of a demon so large it swallowed me while turning inside out inside: a vacuous hole, its a trick to see a soul in my eyes and the lines of my face because i haven't been here most my life, i'm afraid, i couldn't let it go without going away

i gave up belief. which is life and to be, because i'd rather be free but when i got to the giving my body which controls me pulled me down and cried so loud i couldn't see

because it rules me