I Wear Them Like a Chain

I Wear Them Like a Chain

“([God], look away from him and leave him alone, so he can enjoy his time, like a hired worker.” Job 14:6)

Sometimes you are heavier than glaciers,
and I breathe the moraines left inside me by
the previous ice age. Look away from me until my
heart warms slowly like spring wildflowers along the highway.

You are too present for me, though all I feel are electrical charges
in my brain
sustained from the first second a decade ago until this moment
weeping over the work I’ve forsaken,
the relationships I could not keep,
the mastery over my life that was just a servant to
the chemicals in my brain. Please ease the distance between
us.

I cannot work when you have confined me to unwieldy thoughts
and pain so accurate it stabs me on the spot I’ve made famous
by hiding my fontanels from birth until late autumn. But any
soft spot will do to expose me as a pretender, a joker,
a clown, an actor, a jester, and a swimmer nearly drowned by
exhaustion. Step away just a bit, please, and give me room to think.

Quite prosaically let me say, my anxiety is sky high today.
Every thought is judged, and I have no defense.
Every hypocrisy is seen, and I cannot restart the dance.
Every mutation is obvious, and I cannot modify my genes.
Every tear is tedious, and I cannot explain why my hands quiver,
my thoughts spit from every pore in my head, and I rarely look
anyone in the eye. My life is measured in decades now,
and the charges against
me have piled up for so long I wear them like a chain, and I know
everyone hears me coming.

So, please stay away today, I need some space. Wanting to please you
just brings more disgrace into the veins you created to carry oxygen
to my veins.

So please, I would rather say, (please, do not stay away.)