This was very. Difficult.

I’m not who I am. I am empty.

I was once, but am no more. Something else has taken over, and I am a slave to it. Happiness retreats. Reality floods me. The levies hold then break, crumbling unexpectedly; without warning, I am left with bits and pieces of the sorrow and the loss and the humiliation I have not the courage to face.

I have failed, and refuse to face my mistakes.

I claim to have come to terms with them, but have moved past them so quickly they’re barely acknowledged, never resolved, broken shards in my bleeding side- reflecting what I’ve forgotten, what my laziness has begotten, who I’ve left in the dust of my blazing trail to hell.
My father’s urn, the art for which sit in a drawer nearly completed but untouched. My Air Force Career, which I blame only myself for ruining. I claim to have loyalty and honor, I claim to hold close and sacred the memories of those I’ve lost, and yet I am a fraud. Somehow it is never quite enough. Neglect. To clean my room, my car, my body. I am filthy. I want my outside to reflect my inside, and how my soul is being held hostage by this.

I am a failure in the biggest way.

I have ignored and run from potential for fear that it is too large for me. It will not fit, and will hang off of my insufficient frame like an oversized coat. People will see. Everyone will see.

And I am my own stereotype. Tears lead to shame, shame that I am not stronger. And I am not.

My own weakness induces self-hate, viewed as pity, feeding the cycle as I make my excuses and loathe myself for it. I am stepping outside myself, screaming- “You are pathetic. Hypocritical. You laugh at others who wallow, helpless in their woe. Yet you cradle your self-pity.

"Drown. Just drown so that I, the successful, real you, may live. Because you’ve suppressed and ignored me with such steel intent that I’ve hardly been here, yet I’ve been persevering all along. And I’ve seen the sun. When you surfed and taught, when you were honest with your friends and family, when you played rugby with integrity and honor. That is who I am. And it is my turn. So drown.”

Just die.

So that I may live.