I struggle sometimes—
Well actually, most of the time.
It is worst when I go silent,
Only to hear my own heartbeat,
The voices going back along all the walls,
And in my mind, nothing.

There’s such a thing as
More torn than broken;
When you ask yourself a question
And it echoes back from an empty world
And you are left alone,
Wondering: just how far can I go?

Now I know that I shouldn’t be
Running my mouth
Talking about how I am a void
That swallows but does not retch,
That seizes but does not return;
Somehow less than a waste of space,
When I am really just a person like you.

And I get how poetry
Has this weird taboo surrounding it;
How it is never ever talked about
Except in school,
Or under the guise
Of song lyrics.

I don’t really care about that,
Because I’m a mutt, a crazed hybrid
Half cynical and half sad.
There is no in between of me
Laughing in your face
Or sitting and doing simply nothing.
And I am so, so sorry about that.

I’m not even close to being through with this.
This is my ode to everything I hate about myself,
And I write with some sour feeling
In my stomach, and a small, tremulous heart.

A tribute to all my past selves,
From the petty little kid,
To the pretentious independence,
And finally to the downfall.
To current me, climbing;
A swirling tempest of everything,
The wild dwelling of constraints
And aspirations alike.

Beware of me, the snarling beast,
The big dog laying on the floor,
One eye open; sensing, stalling.
It is my instinct to be like this.
I dislike it as much as you do—
Selfish by nature.

I feel nothing,
I feel terrible but I feel nothing.
I love you, and I want to love you
With all my heart.
I want to protect you
With all I’ve got.

But will I ever
Trust myself with you?
Am I really
Good enough for you?

This I think,
As I stand in my room on a Sunday evening,
Cradled by my own incompetence
As the pink sun goes down again
And the night sky clouds over.