bottle

Perhaps my flaw is that I was too selfless
And I'll probably gift away my last breaths
Half-dressed under flickering street lights
Half-confessed, half-possessed
they'll say as say they stare into the abscess

"Relax", "Don't stress" I guess I get your good intents
But intense to one, just seems to pale in others lenses
back to the sixth sense myth
emotive over-sensitive it's
"good that you should vent" or it's
"just like everyone else's"

Well this seems a barren plain of platitudes
as it's rude to neglect the help that's readily dispensed
well it's just that- dispensed
25 cents and turn
and your plastic packaged bandage
should cure from itch to burns
remove stitches and spurn glitches
spit genies from urn
in fact, if it floats, it'll cause witches to burn

which is exactly my predicament
I am just a witch in this
Malleus Maleficarum straddled best seller list
which just displaced the exodus
stakes enter rib cage, exit dust
what's next, it's trust
followed by a bottled form of regiment

sediment
sinking to the bottom, ever reticent

and then...

again. It's always the same. IS this what I'm meant to do? Is it even so deep? What else do I have to offer if not this. No other sights in my view seem to appease these thoughts of my inherent futility.
Just push, push, push...
That's all I see. Fractured dreams and a broken scope. No lens to clarify, straighten or demystify; just the same dull answers and a shovel for digging.
The aches on my shoulders and bags under my eyes are now nearly impossible to mask. And I can almost hear the gray hairs poking through, old age at such a young juncture. So much weighing right now that escape is neither an option nor a solution. In fact I'm obligated, my past mired with a litany of unfinished chores, hopes and dreams, abandoned with as little forethought as a crashing waves gives to wayward kelp, to persevere. I owe this to myself; I, who have reflected on these "quittings" from my past and realized that nothing can make up for them, and who have taken on the hero's helm and mantle of responsibility, of the flawed hero who's current modus opperandi serves a self-interested purpose of redemption.

And so where will it leave me if I shrug off this helm, this cape and mask? What then? What hero will I be then? To whom will I owe allegiance if I can't hold it to myself? To what depths do the borders of my country sink if my vision is mired, my stature so frail, my word so thin?

Off again into some unknown obscurity. And yet as hard as I pull on the mask, it will never come off( but that's anothertopicforanothertime).