Prickles in My Pie

My life would be so much better, so much sweeter, to say the least.
None of you, my vexing, nerve-rattling memories, are worthy to swim my mental seas.
So obnoxious and so wearying, so angering and so old:
No matter how much I tell you all to go away, you remain so fucking bold!

My obsessive thoughts . . . my vermin memories . . .
My every being's infestation—like perpetually taunting trees.

Somebody please help me ward them off,
But how can you ward off phantoms?
Mistakes I've done, and wrongs done to me,
I cannot let them go or perhaps they can't me;
I'm a riddle to myself;
I'm my own disease.

Madness is all it is,
Maybe amnesia is the only cure;
If only I could live one hour without any of you . . .
How it scares me that you increase with time impure.

I love life to its fullest;
I want to love it more.
I need this constant self-scolding and over-rumination of "how could I?" and "how could they's" to finally just cease and go away.
I try to tell myself "I'm beyond all this," but it is of no use;
I always come back full-circle, to my world of angst, regret, embarrassment, contempt, rage and self-abuse.

I've trusted the wrong people;
I've let the wrong people in.
Solipsistic naivety has been my ultimate sin.

But life could be so much better, so much sweeter, to say the least,
If I could just let all this go, and kill this inner beast.

Or maybe if I just learned to stop caring about the sheer idiocy in my past,
If I just shrugged my shoulders at every major or minor debacle that's ever, ever been hashed.

Ah, to be somebody else,
Perhaps that's the key:
Not to be so sensitive,
To give up a huge part of me.
To learn to forgive myself and others,
Quite the goal for sheer misanthropy.
Easier said than done,
But in the end it all amounts to none.

I have a life to lead here, and I hate wasting time.
But what do I do with all of you, you prickles in my pie?
How could I let you get the better of me?
Why won't you all just die?

This goddamn weight on my shoulders,
This brutal self-destruction from inside.
I must find a way to release you,
Or my time is nigh.