Dirt
I gave you a tall task.
I wound up my happiness into a tiny ball
and handed it to you
with nothing more than a shrug
and blind hope.
I am at once optimist and pessimist,
rolling my eyes at my hopes and stomping them in the dirt,
then turning back around to smooth over the top.
As if you could ever bear the weight of my sanity
when you have lost grip of your own.
It was dead from the start
and I knew that
but I would rather swallow the dirt
and drown in my filth
than work my way through the darkness.
Sometimes drowning is easier.
I want to fault you.
It’s easier to be angry
than it is to crawl out of the ditch.
But my God.
Living down here is suffocating.
At some point I will work
to reclaim my fistful of self-worth,
making sure it never escapes me again.
But for right now,
I can’t even trust my next step.
