Ruminate

As soon as the bubble of dread bursts, and the bad news is shared, it sinks into my chest like a parasite with a ring of fangs for teeth. Whatever the tragedy, it belongs to anyone but me. And yet it consumes me, feeds from my energy as if the perpetrator grows stronger from affecting the world with their depravity. I beg myself to look away, shield my mind from the despair of a stranger. Something sinister then convinces me that to shut it out is to invalidate their pain. Somehow knowing and feeling their anguish may somehow relieve them from it for only a moment. Who would I be to deny the damned from a moment of peace? But of course they continue to suffer, and I continue to flood my own brain with images of what had occurred as if I were a first- hand witness. I wonder, I fear, I endure thoughts like a runaway train headed for my inner child tied to the tracks. Vulnerable and pure, the shock of a bad event alive elsewhere in the universe shatters me and violates my inner world. I ruminate on the facts, chewing and considering until I feel so worthless that I cannot help. I feel so weak and pathetic that it brings me panic to consider my feelings when it isn't about me. It has nothing to do with me. I try to change the topic of my inner monologue, to will control over my conscious existence. My subconscious always drawing me back into the abyss. The conflicting nature of blissful ignorance and being aware of the world. I don't wish to set my head in the sand, but I wish my thoughts would break from misery and focus on the hope.