I Feel Like Giving Up

There is so much anguish in the world,
and I can’t keep ignoring it.
It haunts me.
Everywhere I go it’s right there with me.

Following me, clinging, suffocating.
It tears at my heart, and the cuts keep getting deeper.
I feel the pain, the physical pain in my heart
caused by the cries of others.
Too well do I know the world,
our terrible world,
and eventually I just can’t handle it anymore,
and I fall apart,
because there’s nothing I can do
that could cease the suffering that exists
everywhere.
It surrounds me like a dense fog
that refuses to let me go
like it chose me
to hold all the pain and suffering
and I feel like giving up
on the world,
on myself.