Slave (A poem I apparently wrote but had forgotten and just now discovered)

So the title explains this post fairly well.  This poem is something that I wrote, according to the MSWord timestamp, on October 9, 2012.  I don't remember what was going on in my life on October 9, 2012*, but this apparently was something that just hit my mind with that quiet voice that says, "Write me....write me....write me...." so I wrote it.

Slave 

They tell me I cannot begin to fathom what it would be like

To be a slave, to be controlled by someone else,

Do this, do that, do my bidding.

What they don’t realize is that even though the color of myskin

And the era in which I live dictates I am not a slave toanother man

I am still a slave, a slave in my own mind.

I am a slave to the thoughts that plague me,

Constant streams of lies, no, rivers of lies, longer thanthe Nile.

“You can eat this, but don’t even think about that.”

“You can watch this movie, but make sure you compensatedowntime by exercising.”

Unless you’ve been there, you have no idea.

My shackles are not visible, yet they are just as heavy asmetal chains

Dragging me down with feelings of guilt and fear and shame,

Never ceasing to burden my mind with thoughts of things Idid wrong,

Things I could’ve done better, and how skipping a meal willhelp me achieve

Perfection.

In every area of life.

*Author's edit*
During a therapy session several hours after posting the above poem, as I was explaining the poem, I realized what exactly was going on in my life on October 9, 2012.  That was 5 days after my granddad died.  They had been the 5 days of my life, up to that point, where I had felt the most heartwrenchingly sad.  That entire time is a blur, and I had blocked most of the negative parts due to necessity of living my life as well as a result of other severe heartache we have dealt with as a family since then (which was, for me personally, on the same level of heartwrenching sadness