i am a pendulum
oscillating between
ostensible antitheses,
elapsing like a ticking
time-bomb.

most days
i want to save the world.
but sometimes
i want to destroy
the entire cosmos.

ball up my fists and break
up the regimes
of bigots, rapists, and racists.
smash the militarists, misogynist
pigs, and Islamaphobes.

but that's the problem, isn't it?
in our self-indulgent belligerence
and fatuous ignorance, we utilize violence
deposing one tyrant just to install another,
eternally entombed in shackles.

i am too weak
to cure this suicidal impulse
and, in my obeisance,
i've stained my hands
red with crimson.

this death-drive sends us
spiraling into an abyss
we wrought for ourselves.
maybe we just want to watch
the world burn.

the ruptures we've torn
in mother earth
are eerily reminiscent
of our own fractured
mental health

and this sickness leaves me bipolar,
vacillating between two extremes:
fantasizing about the end of the world
and simply wanting to **** myself
to be done with this wretched hell.