I. The Final Whine

When I thought less and loved more
I was happier.
When I was happier,
my voice flew
without flight feathers.
Singing was easy
and contagious.
I could make fearful men
join in.

I'd love to understand -
no, to control -
the forces that snared me in selfishness.
I want an instant replay
of when, and why, and how
my body became a cage
and I
this beast inside

that wakes when my heart
starts to tiptoe to my throat,
hoping to see the world for a minute -
hoping to escape -
only to find claws in its delicate face.

So my heart is constantly in hiding these days.
Rightfully so;
I have beaten it up so much,
meaning well.
It's had to learn to slink about,
to sneak at all times,
hiding its scent from that demon's snout.

The tension makes me want to vanish,
and howl.

A war that I own, that I make.
I know it is me.
Bruising and eating and demanding
amends for lost chances
that I cannot make.
Instead, all I have to offer for tribute
is shame.

It's me. All me.
I may not be behind the thing's starving, stealing eyes
seeing the things it sees,
but I must claim it,
for I'm letting it live in me
and raise hell -
it chews on my heart,
and you are what you eat.

I pray to also be
what my demon destroys,
for the best of me and my bones
make its toys.
It's drowned my good, strong garden
in relapses.
Poisoned the young trees I planted
with toxic exhales,
taking them for cruel kindling
for the next episode of self-defeat.

Oh, I claim it.
I lie awake at night thinking of ways to try and tame it.

Its drool makes me guilty,
and that's how it feeds,
and I don't know how
to crawl from under this thing

that is me.

The way I'm treating myself is disgusting.
So is the fact that I'm so lost
in this thick, thick head
and this sensitive skin
that the people who feed me love
suffer to see it misused.

I've felt enough tight-chested, tangled, twisted-twine feelings
that when faced with a knot, a puzzle, a question
that I [i]can[i] touch
I never let it sit.
I pick at it
to help it unwind,
until it can escape
and spread its sweet length again.
More delicious from having been
locked in a riddle.

How can I not blame myself for this puddle of tears
I'm in.
It's my fault, I know it.
I smell it.
The sweat of my own struggling,
my own strangling,
sticky and sick
and showing.
I cry, yucky self-pity, I do hear my own whining.
I hate doing that - this -
but it's so much more painful to hold it all in.

I feel myself - my beast - putting my head in its fist,
reminding me all day
of the love around me I cannot live up to,
the faith I can't repay.
Not yet.
Not until my whining, wagging guilt,
shame,
shit --
not until I find a way
to away,
to turn this self-devouring cowardice
into flying, freaky rage,
and get enough momentum
to bust out of my ribcage.

Yet I understand, too...
when a beast has you,
thrashing makes the teeth sink -
struggling makes the snake squeeze,
and you're lion meat if you try and flee.

It seems to make sense,
all of this.
I see the knot
with untouchable ends.
I see how it should loosen,
how it would fall,
how I could finally be back
to loving and caring and giving
my all.

But I'm sweeping, scraping,
fingerprint-dusting -
scouring my insides for forgiveness.
The ticket out of this mess.

and fuck,
I can't seem to find it.