where the hell is your sense of self?

your confident and easy mind?

you’re so crippled by your carelessness,

sat benignly in the bylines.

does your effort have to be maximum, ‘most’,

or your hatred rules the room?

‘your excellence’ falls off of their tongues,

but self-doubt sells the tomb.

admitting and owning your infallible failures,

roots a confession of ignorance, in shame,

your head in your hands; your heart falling out,

dead-eyed guilt, deepening pain—

cause slowly but surely you’ve become something dark,

you’d sell a soul for someone to say ‘breathe’

and you wouldn’t believe it (you suck air down, bleeding);

it's a licking wound, this terrible grief.

there’s someone before you and someone someday after,

whose hatred is too easy to miss,

and their perfection unperfected, spiral of unpleasant,

cuts through the curve of your wrists.