However much I try to pull myself up
From the depths of despair about life
I keep failing, feeling I should shut up
No matter what I try my hand at
Be it some slight interest in a relationship
Be it love for poetry or literature
Be it love for philosophy or friendship
Be it love for compassion or truth
Be it love for writing or reading
Nothing fulfills, nothing at all, zilch
Unable to either love myself or others
I exist, driven hither and thither
Like the autumn leaf blown around
Though to talk of leaf is itself anathema
Hating as I did and still do very much
Botany and all the bloody natural sciences
So obsessed with the physical, and yet
Tiring of mind I am, tiring of relationships
Tiring of friendships, tiring of the market
Tiring of contemplation of Plato’s “Good”
Now, no knowledge and wisdom compiled
In the social sciences and humanities
Can come to my rescue, and into the abyss
I seem to fall, and therein perhaps is salvation
With the erasure of all memory and identity.
Know Thyself 