anxious, anxious, anxious

"who taught you shame"

i tremble under this

this weight which sticks my words

to the column of my throat

i point at myself but

then they don't believe

and i don't believe

and i breathe and breathe and breathe

because i don't know i don't know

where did this shame come from

to clog my thoughts with rotten flowers

and to whisper the negativity of

failure and failure and failure that

chokes me and suffocates and i

can't help it that i push and push

my skin through my bones and

i don't know anymore what shame even is

because it is no longer the atmosphere

pressing into my flesh but

it is the intrinsic part of the very atoms

stuck together by some forsaken force of the universe

and i despise despise despise that

i can't break apart

that i can't scatter each electron

back into the stars

where they serve better to illuminate

than to tell me "this is guilt"

and then

then

i will know that shame stings

my lips and pricks

at my eyes

it is a pit of acid in my stomach

and shame becomes me