I act as the poltergeist of your thoughts

I’ll run your train off the track and take you with me

To a place where nothing is complete

And tell you it’s all yours

 

I act as the prison fence in your brain

My chain link bounces your understanding backwards

And any attempts to climb over me

Will shred them to ribbons

 

I act as the sandstorm through your plans

I whip your intentions into the air and carry them far away

As you stand, desperately reaching

Sand stinging your eyes

 

I live in your house and I sleep in your bed

And no matter where you go I’ll exist in your head

 

You’ll find me setting your car on the tracks

Doors all locked as the inevitable races toward you, gaining speed

And you can stomp on the gas

But you’re paralyzed

 

You’ll find me slinking into your chest

Slithering under your ribs to wrap myself around your heart

My muscles constricting

Your muscle submitting

 

You’ll find me crawling under your skin

Buzzing and moving and squirming and biting

Any external comfort lost on me

I’ve infested your flesh

 

I wait around corners of life for you to find

And you can’t escape the maze when it’s part of your mind

 

You know me when you’re slowing to a stop

Desperately chugging and fanning fading embers in your engine

Potential for speed slipping away

Weight increasing with deceleration

 

You know me as your reflection in the mirror

Your lips, your thighs, your hair screaming how your whole self is wrong

And suddenly scarring yourself

Doesn’t feel like such a sin

 

But you know me best at nighttime

When nothing distracts and my voice can whisper through the shadows

And relay your mother’s worries

And suggest you ease her burden permanently

 

I suffocate any soldiers left in the smoldering debris

And you can take your pills but there’s no getting rid of me 

 

But still, I am more

 

I am the engineer of my own path

And no matter how many cars I must drag along with me

The direction is still mine

My horizon to be seized

 

I am the oceans of the Earth

With treasures still to discover and worlds within my depths

Pulled by the moon into tides

Growing, changing, creating

 

I am my statue of liberty

Standing resolute through wind and rain to guide my ships home

And though I might be rusted

I can bring hope in the darkest night

 

I exceed the limits of what language can explain

And I am more than any misfire inside of my brain