Coward

I can feel the ticking because it’s all hollow inside.
Nothing there…
Just emptiness that I thought I knew how to fill.
But, I cannot. I can’t do what I need.
All I can do is utter little phrases if I force myself.
I like those simple one-syllable words.
Like “yeah”
It’s so simple, easy to understand.
Or if I’m up to it a “whatever.”
All the while off in the background,
There is that ticking.
How I loathe it.
I can turn my back on it, but
As it was once coined “conscience does make cowards of us all”
I am a coward without conscience.
And that little space?
Well it’s filled with the opposite if what I wanted to put in there to begin with.
How I loathe myself.
My work, how I will be remembered.
How I will be remembered without my work.
I am a coward.
I do not defend myself against others;
Why should I defend myself from me?
One day I am able to talk about phobias, those nice little fears till sunlight pours past my curtains.
While still hearing this ticking,
While still feeling hollow inside.
And I know yet that it is filled with that self-loathing.
I still feel hollow