Choking

I'm choking on contradictions. A hundred opposites coursing through me and fighting their way to the surface. Happiness and sadness. Excitement and dread. Hope and fear. Faith and loss. I feel them all. I smile as I sob and I find myself crying when I laugh. I skip around in joy, and then all of a sudden I shrink back into myself and drown in despair.

I feel too many things to feel anything but a lack of air. The tangle of emotions inside me is too loud to be ignored and too messy to be faced. I try to figure them out and to feel them all, but the more attention I give them the stronger they grow. The more I ignore them the more tangled they become. Any way I handle them they grow heavier on my chest, heavier in my throat and behind my lids.

I'm suffocating. My strength is battling my weakness, trying to dislodge the mountain of rocks that is keeping me from breathing but it won't budge. A hundred contradictions is one too many and I'm just lost in the storm they've all wrought up, running around blindly looking for air. I'm tired of it all and yet I am so energized. I want to despair and yet I am filled with boundless hope. I wish to cry but every tear comes with a laugh and the balance carries no relief. I want to scream but the only sound I carry is a whisper that's lost before it ever finds its way out.

I'm being torn to pieces by my contradictions. I'm choking on their fights, and I'm losing my battles because of them. All I know to do is to ride them out. All I can do is choke and choke and choke until they somehow all balance out.