This urge consumes me-

made necessary by circumstance

and misfortune,

made real by the real fear that follows me

down all of the streets,

around the corners I hide behind.

It is not a thing I desire,

not a thing I want to experience,

or face in a dark alley-way;

yet it is always there,

the travelers road-

waiting, listening

for signs of weakness.

It is the touch of madness in my mind,

the dark pits beneath my sleepless eyes-

the deep loathed wisdom in my bleeding heart

that speaks to me in the depths of night,

waking me from my already tainted sleep.

What it says are things I already know of-

no surprises or lies are contained inside its insidious whispering.

Sometimes,

I fall ill and devoid of courage,

and the travelers road appears,

with seemingly all the answers,

the only option.

Sometimes,

I resist,

straining against my own scared irrationality,

succeeding-

but just barely.

This is not the way I would have picked to go,

nor the scenery that I wished to see;

a tornado would have made a prettier mess

than the life I have laid to waste.

In the end,

there is no escaping my fate,

no fixing the past;

but perhaps I can linger longer this time,

and erase this traveler's mark.