Battling Myself

There are many things that I think about myself that I don’t say out loud because I know that no one else wants to hear them, see them, believe them, and I myself don’t even know if they are fact or fiction, but what I do know is that they plague my mind like Egypt in Exodus—swarming, hopping, dripping, dying—I feel the weight crushing me from the inside out, and it takes everything in me to refuse to say the words “you’re right” when the black cloud in my mind has done all it can to beat me into compliance. But I can’t give in. I can’t give in because doing so would be to throw away everything that I have pushed myself to achieve, everything that I have pushed myself to be because I’ve been down this road before—though calling it a road makes it sound as though it could be smooth, as though maybe the scenery is nice and the ride pleasant which is so far from the truth that I would call it laughable if laughing were possible when the monster in your mind has its claws sunk so deeply into your consciousness that smiling hurts because it feels like betrayal. This road is not a road with trees and sunshine and fresh asphalt—it’s a twisting path full of cracks and potholes, the so-called scenery consisting of prompts to starve yourself, reasons to hate who you are, lists of your worst qualities because those are the ones that carry more weight—those are the ones that matter. After fighting and struggling and forcing my way, I convince myself to let me turn back to find the way out of the darkness I have created. I can’t turn back around. Already it is beginning again—the mind games—because I wake up and see my reflection, and the first thing I say to myself is “you are disgusting” the first thing I ask myself is “what is wrong with you?” the first thing I want is to change who and what I see, but that is bullshit—that’s bullshit. The first thing I should say is “I feel good” the first thing I should ask is “what great things do I want to accomplish?” the first thing I should want is to be the best me I can be because I was made to be more that a self-destruct button. I’m fed up with “I hate myself.” I’m fucking tired of tearing myself apart. I am just so done with the hatred, the comparison, the distortion, the lies. The plague in my head can get the hell out because there is blood above my door. I wasn’t created to be filled with emptiness. The goodness that I used to embrace cannot hide in the shadows anymore because the shadows are no longer welcome in this new world that I refuse to let be simply a fantasy because I deserve more than the broken path. I refuse to believe another damn word spoken by the darkness that is formed by insecurity. I cannot retire my sword yet because the battle will not be over until the battlefield is empty.