Self-Abnegation

If I cannot be myself

then I will go back to being a dead person 

haunting the house of the apocalypse

in the hours of dawn 

you cannot fix how I feel

that I’ve been dragged into the mire

from the beginning I believed 

it was too good to be true

too clean and sweet and kind

like children running through the summer fountain 

see how my illusions

stack one upon the next 

to build incredible towers

that are impossible to keep upright 

the arc of disintegration has come again

it never crashes down 

I watch it fall slowly

one grain of sand at a time.