A place for poetry and prose
It happens sometimes,
That itch you can’t scratch,
That anger you can’t stop,
That peace we can’t see.
It happens sometimes,
That sadness that sticks,
That hope that sleeps,
That guilt that sears.
It happens sometimes,
And I can’t control it,
And you always know it,
And we never show it.
It happens sometimes,
It stays inside,
It eats away,
It steals the day.
I had to kill it.
I had to make you hate me,
Before it killed me.
I had to burn it.
This tempting bridge which,
Every night I would dream.
A dream of marching across
My shambling hordes of sorrows.
I would have drown you
If you ever gave me the chance.
I’ve never seen the surface.
This sun, under which you dance,
I’ve never had the pleasure.
I want you down here.
So I made you hate me.
This day may burn me to ash,
Before I ever lay beneath it,
And watch you glow,
With someone else.
I can feel a tension building; a familiar tension.
The tingle on the back of my skull.
The anxiety.
The anger.
The frustration with how much of this process of living I don’t understand.
The confusion of why I’m here, what I’m searching for, and why I can never be happy.
It’s a powder keg and embers are floating everywhere.
I get like this sometimes.
Sometimes I can’t push down the questions, the doubts, and the fears.
Every time this happens, I know. I know there’s potential.
Potential for a lightning strike.
A thunderous explosion.
A lapse of reason.
I have to weather the storm.
I just have to wait for it to pass.
Play dead, don’t move, don’t think.
Lest my presence be known to the dark thoughts prowling past.
The monstrous realities that exist in this plane.
Don’t even breathe.
I am cursed
by a passive, leaden burden.
My vitality is strained.
For why, I’m not certain.
A disease, perhaps,
crass and furtive;
my eyes; shattered glass
beneath fast flowing curtains.
The foundation is cracked,
all the lumber is rotten.
I sit and I laugh,
at all the hope I’ve forgotten.
This home, how it moans,
as I lie here alone;
if I let no one in,
then no one can go.
It’s too rotten for guests,
I guess it’s for the best.
Mold has infested the pantry,
rats have nested the gantry;
To eject me from this tomb
would take true necromancy.
Today started with a cigarette and dirty clothes.
Some time with the bathroom mirror. Sunken eyes.
A temporary consideration of hygiene. Mouthwash,
hair brushed, long stare. Long silence. Then, coffee
and hurried strides to the car. To classes he went,
with the aura of not good enough, not today.
It made him want to shrink.
To nothing.
