I am crying through the dishes
and I'm struggling so hard to get through them
you do not see my war
you percieve laziness
procrastination
this---
I tell you
-----is not laziness
this-----
I tell you
-----is sitting on my bathroom floor at 3am exhausted but unable to go to sleep until I do the dishes
this is not showering for two weeks because the place I go to get clean is murky with filth I can't bring myself to touch
this is disgust at myself and my brain for letting it get this bad again
this is crying while I scrubb with a deep anxious pressure on my chest---

doing the dishes makes me feel like I'm being held at gunpoint
the anxiety so real and heavy and demanding

I put it off
and I sit
and I wait
while it grows
and practices
and sculpts
and perfects
and becomes more menacing by the minute
and I cower

this is not as simple as doing the dishes
not as simple as getting it done
not as simple as just pushing through it
this is                   wrong

doing the dishes is wrong in a way I cannot describe
and I feel nothing but absolute fear and terror and shame

and shame