Am I hollow
Or filled with this emptiness?
I spend too much time lusting for clarity,
Have polished my soul so hard it seems,
Its pattern has worn off.

Yet still I bleach and scrub each action,
Until the most minute faux pas-
Causes the whole memory to fade.

Life seems to happen beyond,
Outside this glass pane,
That locks me in, insanity.

They dance around the words,
Too sorry to bear the news,
She is not simply broken,
Her condition is chronic,
She will always think 'too much'.

So now it sits deep in my gut,
That perhaps my mind is in fact,
The Ugly Duckling.
Twisted and gnarled, yes,
But with character and intrigue?

Every turn of my thoughts,
These endless raving mantras,
Force my brain to try again,
To try and grasp the facts...
Or find a kinder truth.

It's grotesque, this conflict
I fight and hurt on both sides-
All the while maintaining the battle lines.

I'm simultaneously stuck,
Wanting to crawl from my skin;
And wishing to withdraw in.

This all seems part of the human condition,
A little thing no one ever mentioned.
Manufactured for constants,
In an ever changing world,
No wonder life appears so hard.