Sometimes

Sometimes I feel like I am standing on the precipice of a great catastrophe, on the edge of a not-so-dormant volcano that is rumbling menacingly just beneath the earth's surface, or that I am gingerly, softly, sliding my fingers along the wet maw of a starving lion...if I can hear the coming storm, see the swirling dark clouds in the distance, I can't avert my eyes nor direct my steps to escape, like I have some terrible fascination in impending doom. I stare and think: there is fate; that is destiny. Whatever it brings it comes without mercy and without remorse. It knows no emotion nor offers no reprieve. It just is.

Sometimes...I dream of infants with adult voices, their sardonic puckered pink faces cajoling, mocking, words cruelly reminding me of years tumbling down beyond my power to grasp them. I have conversations with these too-wise children, plead ignorance, diversion or disinterest, but they accept no excuse, they trade no barter, they forgive no wasted time. They know how stealthy the years can creep while we wait for better circumstance.

I amaze myself with my ease at cruelty, how with a turn of phrase, a flick of a wrist, and I have made my painful mark. I watch it like a captive audience in disbelief, and replay it again and again, multiplying the cruelty with a punishment of mine and all my own.

Sometimes I know I am self-destructing, I know I am sabotaging my life, I know the arms that are holding up a facade are weakening and I let them weaken. Sometimes I love the sound of the crash and the fury and the temporary calm of the eye of my own storm.

I lash out, anger redirected. I am not angry at you. I am angry at myself, disgusted with myself, afraid of myself and what I am capable of destroying. And before I destroy this fragile thing we’ve created, I sacrifice it, hold it up and point out its flaws and weaknesses to you so you can say the words I am afraid to say and you can bear the weight of the stigma, the title of murderer, the Knight whose sword missed its aim and slew me instead of the dragon. Or perhaps I am the dragon and your aim was unconsciously true.