They fill my head like sludge.
Like tar.
Like quicksand.
They're ubiquitous like air or death,
weighed down to form a
5-ton paperweight that holds down thoughts
like a suffocating slough of venomous snakes.
I am Atlas,
bearing the weight of the world
and twice that.
I am Prometheus,
Constantly having my innards plucked out
by a swarm of gloomy vultures.
I am Icarus,
burning like a gasoline-coated match from the Sun's heat
any time I try to rise more than a meter from the Earth.
I am all of the gruesome Greek legends and tragedies
rolled neatly into one
pitiful,
suffocating,
drowning,
somber
mess.