This week, I decided to take a different turn and publish one of my own pieces of poetry I've been working on for a while. I was inspired during a poetry class I took while in college, we read a book named "Gloss" by Ida Stewart.

Self

There's a slight hum in my Self,

spiteful little thing never shutting up.

The humming boils over

into skies painted dark by waterproof eyeliner.

The atmosphere is angered by the sound,

the slowly turning deafening sound

of the Self, screaming to get out.

I stuff optimism down my throat in

the form of small capsules taken

with steaming tea I’m too lazy

to let cool.

My Self won’t shut up, it creeps

into every nook and cranny in my thoughts

and bloats them into floating buoys

bobbing along, waiting to sink me.

Somehow tides change and the

safety of my above-water friends

is gone, they plummet to the bottom

of my Self like anchors.

My Self has stuck me underwater,

taking my stored optimisms and encasing

them in my cement shoes.

My Self arms me with a plastic spoon

to dig them out and says

“Good luck”

as if only to reassure me it’ll take time.

My Self has put me here before.

Yelling about perfection and

deadlines and numbers and

anything that falls under the umbrella of

“Why can’t you be better?”

My Self stains this ocean

with parts of me I chose to lose.

It tortuously leaves spiderwebs of their

memory etched into my skin.

I begin to hack at my concrete

boots, hardened by time.

My Self leaves the room and waits

for me to finish so it can kindly bring

me back above water, as if

nothing happened.

Oh, how I wish I had gills.