In Control

A poem about the effects of trying to control aspects of your life neurotically. Trigger warning for eating disorders.

I remember when I used to write love poems for drink,

I would throw myself into the lack of control around me

and looking back I always thought I would stop and think

how I proud I was when that time had passed.

See I thought I would find peace in my healing

that I finally gained control of my behaviours and started

being active in what happened to me, but it is peeling

away now to the question of control being a positive?

 

I have to be in control of everything, a breather is a dream

that I am unable to allow myself to feel, incase pausing

creates this inconceivable paradox, that would seem

to bring about the end of everything good and true in my life.

Once, I lost all that control, it happens a few times per week

when the task becomes insurmountable and collapses.

Always against my will, but yet every time I climb to the peak

of another mountain, that I’m not healthy enough to climb.

 

I do it, just so I can say I am getting it done, this means little.

I tell myself that if I control at least one thing, this life

of mine, isn’t falling apart, isn’t empty, broken and brittle

because I made two phone calls today and skipped dinner.

I need to fix things, I need to keep going, once, twice,  I stopped

before and I would throw caution to the wind, it made me worse

and sick, because back then I literally would have dropped

anything rather than take charge and I can’t be like that anymore.

 

Now? Now I keep loosing control of so many things, yet I grab,                     

I grab for something, anything to hold on too, to be proactive for.

Still I fail, so I hunt for something more to grasp, aimlessly I stab

my hands forward to hold nothing, what can I change?

Really that’s what it comes down too. My own power.

What do I truly have the power myself to change and fix

within me, so now, my stomach growls, I wait an hour

or two, then I have another cigarette, I feel productive.

 

I’m doing it now, I’m fixing things, I at least say I’m fixing things,

yet I feel like I’m taming a monster now and that’s not who

I saw of me before, yet that pathetic imagery really rings

true, because what else could  be so passive I could control it.

Now I’m sad, I feel twisted, without energy, without a glint,

but at least it’s not like before, I throw no caution to the wind

and I can always remain fine as long as I ignore any hint

that maybe I should have let it go a long time before now.

I just have to keep telling myself that this is better for me.

 

 

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

I hope you are taking an antidepressant and are in therapy. Good luck.