Around me lies a void of dead space,
A cold vacuum,
An orbit of haunted shipwrecks and scrap debris,
Broken spacesuits and heartbroken asteroids,
A desolate astral barrier,
Silent and lonesome,
It’s between me and the cosmos of society,
Their planets are lightyears away,
Muted and hazy,
I don’t mind it though,
I shut off the oxygen valve myself,
Flushing myself out.
From this automobile window,
Through tired eyes,
I saw it,
Or was it you?
A shadow play,
A shape illuminated from the horizon,
Organised by a curiously grinning sun,
A vision borne of questionable morality,
A questionable past,
It shifted before my eyes,
One moment a woman,
Identity unknown,
The next a spectre of a mistake,
Repeated perpetually in an obsidian pantomime,
The one thing these shadows held in common?
A peculiar element of nostalgia,
Corrupted and cruel.
This form is a bad joke,
Suited best to lost caverns,
Yet necessity demands it be revealed at times,
Stripped of its daily vestments,
Revealed to the gaze,
Though I don’t wish to be uncovered like a relic,
My skin cowers from the light,
Anathema to my shy soul,
I feel unsafe outside my fabric armour,
Unarmed and abashed,
Vulnerable and languid,
My body longs for rescue from the wardrobe,
My mirror cracks at the sight,
Everyone’s a critic,
Not that I can argue,
Oh to be a vampire,
To be hidden ever by silk and polyester,
As invisible as I should be.
A realisation struck me,
Like a thousand leaves falling,
That my soul is of an autumnal paradigm,
I resonate with the newly grey skies,
I am Halloween and melancholia,
I am not living but instead turning amber and gold,
When I say good morning,
I expel cold misty air,
I play with the increasing winds,
Hiding behind pinecones and shed leaves,
As the days harvest comes to an end,
I greet the growing night with a sombre bonfire,
I am decay,
Not death itself,
It is not yet winter,
This I know,
I am the march towards the end,
Not the ossuary itself.
There were times,
Even in the darkest caves of my depression,
That I was most at rest,
Most sedate,
Most in tranquillity,
Almost cocooned,
Within an ice bath of sterile numbness,
Once the tears have dried,
And the throat is already sore,
Then comes the numbness,
Calming yet terrible,
Sat on that lonesome bench,
With only my tired thoughts,
And the grey carpets of leaves,
But in truth,
The solitude is addictive,
The silence is the finest symphony,
A melody of soothing needles,
A drug my weary mind savours,
It’s dangerous in all honesty,
You almost don’t want to get better.
I was submerged,
A dismal submarine,
Thrown overboard,
Laid low by fates gravity,
Into the embrace of a spiritless blue,
Lashed by whips of swell,
A penance for my idiocy,
For my mistakes,
In the cold of the abyss,
Fathoms and fathoms down,
My only companions were alcoholic guppies,
Ungrateful eels and sharks of disrepute,
They hissed and glubbed only pleases and pines to me,
I needed not to breath,
But let the icy water inundate my being,
To drown my thoughts,
And drown I did for too long,
Until a siren pulled me aloft from the wash,
On a bed of roses and bubbles,
She kissed me with a realisation,
That ocean was my own mind,
The darkest solitude,
And deepest expanse.
Perhaps on a whim,
I take a pilgrimage upon the buses,
Public transport cruise liner,
Past the blank-faced operator,
Sitting comfy amongst trash and the trashy,
Taking in all of the voices,
From my fellow bus ticket colleagues,
The factoids,
The information,
Barely a smirk between us,
Double-decker sardine tin on wheels,
From these cheap fabric thrones,
The views are magnificent,
Grey spires beside grey blocks,
Slate upon grey upon ash,
With a dash of fecal brown for a change,
It’s enough to bring a tear to the eye,
Until my stop beckons,
And those motorised doors open,
I finally escape into that gloomy grey.
Living is all chemicals,
Being is all medication,
Blood and acid and sugar,
Saltpeter and alcohol and enzyme,
The flesh is merely stone without it,
We require it,
So voracious have we become,
There’s a chemical for every ill,
Have a bit of pain?
Pop a pill,
Black clouds overbearing?
Best get on that firewater,
Your brain is rebelling?
Antipsychotics have got you honey,
Stress overstimulates that tired heart?
I’ve got a light here,
Medicate that little problem,
And all of those too,
It’ll fix any issue you have,
Imagined or otherwise,
For better or for worse,
It can even offer a way out,
Tired of it all?
Here’s some Flavourade.
I often wonder,
As I gaze at more tears on television,
Does life have a deus ex machina in the works?
A god out of the machine,
A plot twist in our lives,
A magical transcendental moment,
Perhaps an angel could lift a finger,
Or the Devil himself take a day off,
It’d be a game changer,
I wish someone would write that blissful passage,
To switch on the machine,
To rapidly change our fortunes,
Call it convenient,
Call it idealistic,
But have we not suffered enough?
Haven’t we crawled through enough ditches?
Ding ding,
A doorbell death knell,
My pulse surges like a cauldron,
A gasket ready to blow,
There is an invader in our midst,
A revenant with a kindly face,
Knock knock,
The door chants to me,
The palpitations begin their dance,
This perpetual state of foreboding,
It’s a disease of the mind,
Why do you want to see me?
Ring ring,
Outside there are foes,
Demons with torches and pitchforks,
Wielding such threats as hellos and good mornings,
Casting dark spells with waves and smiles,
Don’t let them in,
Beep beep,
Friends call up from outside,
I retreat to my duvet,
I don’t belong in that society,
Why else would I shiver at their presence,
And shield my eyes from their azure skies?
