Polluted

I don’t know exactly how it got to this point,
Fighting figures from my past that are long gone and glaring at ghosts
that have no substance.
Over a decade and three degrees later, I am none the wiser.
There is a rope tied to my waist and a boulder it pulls and I am the one
who keeps tightening the knot.

I can’t depart with memories, even those that burn their way through my
brain—cerebrum sloshing around my skull like sewer sludge. I pollute
myself.

I dug a hole so deep that it became a pit—a dark space that I couldn’t fill
with drugs, possessions, or sex.
I dug a hole so deep that sunlight no longer shows itself.
I’m running on a generator. Back-up power. I’m in the pit with a lightbulb
but I don’t know how much longer it has before it goes out.

And when it does go out, don’t re-evaluate anything. Don’t ask if there
was anything that could have been done to prevent it. When you see
the pit, you’ll wonder if I fell in, if it was an accident…

But then you’ll see the shovel, and the blisters on my hands.

And you’ll know I did it to myself.

Trevor Wing is a writer from North County San Diego.