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.
