Assumption

It eats the brain like a carnivorous worm. It feeds as if it will never feed again. Self-preservation. It devours reason as if it’s on a dreadfully strict diet when it could feed on humor instead. But that could be worse. Rob me off of my sanity, but let me be happy.

I’ll flick it off if I could. Stick it to the hinges of my bedroom door before I step out and bang it shut. Mash it with a flip flop until it seeps through the wooden floor and stinks.

Let it hold the reigns and it will drive you to the farthest and most impertinent paths in swift movements where your sanity is jettisoned like empty wooden boxes. It’s worse than nicotine. Worse than alcohol. Worse than a drug. It’s a recurring headache for which you won’t take medicine.

It’s not that you like it for all your denied masochistic tendencies. You will compromise yourself, commit to something you know is dangerous to start with, wish for the best and hope that your feelings and time and attention are requited. Nothing really happens to smash your expectations but for some bizarre reason, the worm feeds again.