The Fatal Flaw

If you’re to name one fatal flaw of yours, I’d consider you a near-perfect human. I’ve too many to pick from and I cannot tell you which one would bring my downfall, one or all.

Fate, it seems, has a twisted sense of humor. Things (as a naive person) I swore off, are the things I talk about, and situations I publicly announced I would never be a part of, are currently my location. Karma, it seems, keeps a special account for me.

Glad as I may be to have learned my lessons well, I’m trapped in a labyrinth of darkness. My existence is tainted with scars in such a fundamental way that nothing comes easy to me anymore; except fear, bringing with it uncontrolled anxiety – an innocuous combination, yet lethal all the same.

There are days when breathing becomes difficult, I feel my chest folding on itself, cutting off the air, while I hear the damned beating of my heart in my ears- no other sound reaches there, trapped in a vacuum made of fear and self-loathing, darkness- all-encompassing.

But I know within my heart that this won’t last and it doesn’t. It happens at the strangest of times amidst the weirdest places. I can’t walk away from it all, because it’s myself- as defeated as I may be.

Like Mahmoud Darwish said –

For me it’s my self, and as torn as I may be, I can’t leave it behind regardless of how tempting the idea of eternal sleep sounds to my weary soul. I still have to go on, carrying those fatal flaws with me.. hoping to take them out one by one. Perhaps my fatal flaw would be caring too much too little, never finding the balance between both – caring too much about the predicament I’m in, and too little about the havoc it’s unleashed within me.

Maybe out of all the flaws, this one would cost me more than just a mere regret. But then regrets are never mere, they are always daunting, and they often linger.

PHOTO CREDIT : NIKO TSVILIOV