The Rot of the Past

By Sérgio Valle Duarte — Own work, CC BY 3.0, Wiki

Secrets fester,
buried under
a life’s worth of memories,
their stench worms its way
through the subconscious,
transmuting prejudices,
subtly poisoning views
until I know not who speaks,
the me I know I should be
or
the tentacles of baggage
reaching out from the past