in all the ways i hoped i would be exculpated, i’m instead occupied by the intricacies of my own circulatory system. a true workhorse. keeps the acrimony and anxiety alive, pumping; not a place it cannot reach. upcycles guilt and self-reproach anew.
observe: garbage emotions. wasteland; wasted hope, wasteful grief.
depositions over time, built up like dunes, fossils of eroded feelings. sanded down remains of the monolithic; too much to feel the full thing, so it trickles to the sediments. slippery, falls through fingers, can’t hold what i feel in my hands. untamable.
throw me in the landfill, i once said. limbs and longing and all. bury me well, bless the dirt. beneath the crush, my compactions and compartments, unforgiven burden. under all this hurt may you still find a real person.
identify all the arteries from which hate springs eternal and let them flow. gushing, generously.
bile churn. sometimes i’m sick to my own stomach, all this sadness shoved down the esophagus—and told to stomach it, bear it out, let it break me down inside out.
don’t remember the last time i tried to pry myself open, phantom clawing, promised i’d never ask again.
can’t cauterize.
what the disreputed tradition of bloodletting forgot. purge of the caustic, seek catharsis as it pools down the drain.