litmus test

I’ve got to develop my own litmus test.
it’s not enough to be comparison shopping for the best me.

it’s no enough to strap myself
to external qualifications of who I should be,
and I’m desperate to do that.

fuck it,
I need a simple way to measure up
and that has to be to my own goals and desires.

and the first place to start is the self-hating bashing tendencies
that I know only too well
through this fucking withdrawn process of introverted writing.

if there is an audience for the hatred-filled drivel,
it’s my own depressed ego.

and the only way to get that out of the way
is take it out to the pasture
I’m so loathe to admit is part of me and blow it away
with all the violence I am capable of mustering,
because I know it lingers here.

and perhaps then, with less self-hatred
the vocabulary will grow and the expressions will morph
into something beyond grade nine metaphors
you know, back when I barely knew
that most basic of a definition.

perhaps then,
it’s going to be something beyond
a self-critique every fucking time I open up and want to get words out.

perhaps then,
it won’t take an endless evening ahead of me of
desperation and fear for my own self loathing
that will spar me into action and cause something to spark here.

ah, it sounds so simple,
and perhaps that is just the way it is.