'All These Things That I've Done'

At the moment, I feel like a loser. Well, today I woke up feeling like a loser. Since then, things have improved--slightly. But I still feel immense shame, guilt, and helplessness.

There's a certain danger in feeling like a loser. You feel like you don't deserve anything. Any attention or praise is easily misdirected. Achievements or self-improvements are forgotten, discarded, or tossed away. You lose sleep. You worry. The thoughts that float through your mind feel like a physical burden on your body. Everything has weight, and you feel so much of it.

Don't get me started on self-esteem. There's none to speak of. It's gone. It's disappeared ("Bye, bye") as if you had none to begin with. Then you wonder if you did have any to begin with, and what a strange emotion self-esteeem is, since it is only felt when we feel threatened, and if felt at any other time we call it pride and condemn it. Yes, you lose that too. You lose so much and gain so little. But none of it is freeing because all you ever want is your old life back; you crave normalcy like a filling meal. You grow weak, all energy spent into this self-perpetuating hatred machine that chews up your self-worth and spits it on your soul.

Guilt is a dish best served boiling. Scalding guilt is at least forceful, impactful; it doesn't hide in shadows, linger on the edges of a café, groping you down with its heavy eyes. Hard to control guilt, even harder to relieve yourself. You depend on others for this one. You want forgiveness so bad it honestly hurts. It acidifies all other goals. The words of this person are all that you ever want, have ever wanted, and nothing but these simple utterences can lift you out of the mire.

Shame. Squirmy, squiggyly, yellow-faced shame. How awful, how ugly, how terrible a neighbor. Shame is dirty, like a stray dog, but clever. Shame wears a suit, and you can't help but trust him. But you already know he's untrustworthy. He's so charming and suave, what choice do I have? Shame, the terrible; shame, the lame; shame, the monster tearing your insides apart. And worse, you're the one who invited him in.