Closing In

It begins as it always does

The doors are shut

Like a silent gunshot from

A firing line to execute me

Now the walls may do their worst

And so may the voices

Ever present but normally drowned out

In the silence are heard

Their words fill my head like spilled chemicals

And still the walls

Every smallest sound another voice

Taunting

Doubting

Jeering

Sneering

Devaluing

Destroying

Every fear and neurosis screams at the top of its lungs

And still the walls

Breath        is no longer possible

Air flees this        terrible room

My lungs expand        and contract

Moving the        nothing inside        and outside

And still the walls

And still the walls

Closing in

Never to let me free

Crushing me alive

Beneath my own fear and self doubt

They stop and I am left in a small room

To contemplate why I have done this to myself

Again