Flirting with Pale Horses

I somehow thought, like most experiences in my life, time would move me along a trajectory where the sadness and pain of the past year would incorporate itself into the unprocessed trauma of 50 years and reside quietly; possible speak with fanciful verse and prose when called upon to elucidate some meaning. It seems however, this despair has no container, it courses throughout; it tears my skin to ensure reminders of the pain are permanent. It gives me just enough light to provoke forward movement, nurses my wounds and teases my curiosity. Perhaps, my path forward is to find commiseration, and to improve my health; seek to repair the external. But there can be no such path. The tools to even sustain my life are gatekept by cost. The perverse humor of this situation writes like a Hitchcock nightcap. Despite my depression and despair, I seek to keep breath in my lungs, but the person holding the preserver, wants my banking information first. As I slip further into darkness, my doctor throws an increasing amount of amber pillars to keep me seeking slivers of light. Depression has been a part of my life as far back as my memories allow, but for the first time, it truly feels like I am at war with a foe, and I have been drafted to fight on the side with which I have no history or familiarity; I barely hold empathy for. 

I seek a friendship with someone whom I can share one moment of escape with, there is none to be had. I seek health, one single moment to feel normal, there is none to be had. I seek a moment of escape from financial freefall - there is none to be had. As if not having a couch, a place to put my records, making the crippling decision to give up on treading water with my credit cards just so I can afford my gatekept health - my television breaks and a speeding ticket. The reminders come without trepidation and I struggle to make sense of their purpose. Like intangible events have power - I was the one speeding, electronics fail, shit just happens. This is my logic now grasping for that preserver. Where hope, heart, health fails - my brain tries to give me a failsafe to see a path through the panic. My exhausted, abused, and dying brain is standing between myself and my end. I suppose if I survive this war, I owe my brain a better life, whatever is left. 

Nothing is familiar; there's just ghosts here. My failures are thread to my skin, scar after scar, following about; mocking. Reminders of choices turned into sacrifices; the wounds I gave others - I thread them to my own. You cannot purchase the past, instead walk across the shards of the moments I shattered. Tonight, I am flirting with the idea of death, thinking like always, if I only make it to dawn, maybe tomorrow, I will gain some ground in this war. I gave myself a milestone that's a week away... my insurance exam. I will make a decision based on pass or fail. If I took that test right now - I would fail, so I am looking at a precipice. I don't have a mile marker after the insurance test, just darkness.