Maggots
My fears run rampant, maggots in my mind.
They’re obsessive and squirming
Even when I’m learning, they’re
worming through my brain, my day,
my thoughts, my speech.
Until I feel as if I could reach
Out and grab them.
So tangible and real to me,
It’s surreal to me
that other people can’t see.
Blind to my flaws
and deaf to my criticisms.
Yet I know they’re there
and I’ve always known exactly where
to look to find my faults.
No, its not my fault that I feel this way,
I can’t help how I think.
I inevitably sink into a swamp
of my anxieties,
a prison of my own making.
Every day feels like I’m just treading water,
fighting to keep my head up.
And even when I have the urge
to submerge
and never resurface,
I can’t help but to wonder,
when I go under;
what comes next?
What will happen when there’s nothing left of me to feast on?
Will they move along, say “so long”
and simply disappear?
Or will they remain
here with me, still want to be near me?
The answer is undetermined,
and now I am determined to escape my mind.
My thoughts are swallowing me whole
and I am no longer in control of my life,
my body, my actions, my self.
And I don’t like myself
And I am no longer my self,
not the way I remember me.
Irrevocably different.
I have a new look
I am a new person, I am hiding.
But old habits die hard,
and some things remain the same.
The ever present fear,
the all-consuming doubt.
I try to find a way out, a way to talk myself down.
But this is going downhill,
and I can feel myself sinking fast.
And as I descend I
pretend this is what I wanted all along,
that it is all okay.
Surround myself with sepia-toned memories,
of a nostalgia-tinged past.
Everything seems better how it was,
how it used to be.
But I need to face
that the past has passed
and I have become who I am.
Its hard to remember the ease
with which I used to breathe,
because now my limbs lay rotting,
my eyes glassy and glazed.
How do you talk about something that no one wants to hear?
Say things that can never be taken back?
No, it’s not just a “phase,”
my life feels more like an ongoing play.
And though I am centre stage
I don’t really take part,
I can’t force myself to accept a role.
I choke on the lines I’ve rehearsed until
they don’t come out like anyone expected.
Yet my monologue rages on in my head.
I smile and I nod.
No one seems to notice that
I’m there,
but I’m not.
Because I
live alone among my thoughts.
Isolated and
lost in a world of my memories and worries.
I could have done this,
I should have done that;
yet I do nothing.
I’m at a standstill
I’m frozen in my ways.
Immobile
floating on the surface of my anxieties.
Caught between wanting to dive deeper
to let myself sink
and knowing that I should’t,
yet not quite sure why.
I’m too cautious to live,
too fearful to die,
I lie here decomposing
while composing this poem;
here rests the girl who thought too much.