I was offered what I needed
And thankful for what I had
But then I began to fear
I began to doubt
I began to ruminate
On what could become of me
If what I was offered
Turned out to not be enough
As fear grew in my mind
It infected my heart
And trickled into my gut
Until all I could think, feel, and sense
Was my own impending doom
My imagined sense of need and want
And the possibility of deprivation
All of this anxiety overtook my rationality
And I reached out to take more
More than I could hold
More than I could ingest
More than I could ever need
Because what if someday
At some point
I didn’t have enough
As I sat among my treasure
My newly acquired belongings
My storehouse for the future
I felt content and safe and satiated
For a brief moment or two
But then I began to fear
I began to doubt
I began to ruminate
On what could happen to me
To my safety
To my contentment
To my evolving sense of self
If someone else had more
More belongings
More treasure
More keys to survival
More power
To possibly take what I had
I began to imagine what it would feel like
To meet another who had more than me
How puny I would feel
How helpless and weak
And vulnerable I could become
This fear grew in my mind
And quickly calcified in my heart
And started churning in my gut
Until all I could think, feel, and sense
Was my own growing desire and aching need
To be more than you
To possess more than you
To know more than you
And in every possible way
To dominate over you
Me over you
Became my mantra
My obsession
My every waking thought
A cancer that grew in my mind
And blackened my heart
And rotted my gut
Until all I could think, feel, and sense
Was me, me, me
And before I knew it
Everything surrounding me was broken
Everyone close to me was broken
Every cell inside of me was broken
Because I let fear become my truth
I let it consume me
Overtake me
And completely fill me
And this is how
Everything became broken
