Allostatic Load

waking up sweating and sobbing not knowing who i am
for a second or two
visited all through the night by the ghosts of my dead friends
or at least dead to me

vulnerability, death to humanity
rollin' around in the tears dripping'
down from the loved ones that i've hurt

and accountability, what does that really mean
when you have grown and you know all the things you did wrong
we've gotta do better than putting' in effort
we've gotta unlearn all our faults
because hate is exhausting when we could be fostering
nurturing love for each other

because we get hurt to help others
and we hurt others to get help
we fail better the more we heal
and we heal faster the more we fail

my skull and the side of the janitor's
door are becoming close friends lately
because if i lose a tooth does it
count as abuse if the punches came from me

so i'll do my best just to stay off of trestle
it feels like there's much more to be
and if i'm an abuser, then i'm still a human first
or at least that's what my higher self makes me believe

when sorry starts sounding less like an apology
and starts sounding more like a reflex

then we've got a lot of work left to do.