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.