The mirror lies,
I swear it,
It’s very sheen rippling with deceit,
Or perhaps malice,
It insults me with that foul image,
A reflection of some miscreation,
Is that who I am?
That creature,
Are those my eyes?
Those unfeeling oculi,
But I foolishly believed myself a man,
A higher primate,
A lie like a million glass shards,
Bad luck for a lifetime,
Denying my own monstrosity,
A crisis of the very self,
Carrying oneself as a somebody,
While being a nothing of a ghoul.
Is this my peak?
Are there no more skills open to me?
Do no more sides of Everest remain?
Is this my premature apotheosis?
A dead writer liable to be forgotten?
I am already savagely windswept,
Cruelly bruised and scathed,
Sweat has coloured my skin and hair,
Beaten down by the world,
Beaten down by my own closed fist,
I know not how to improve,
How to sharpen my pen,
I don’t know how to make my mark,
How to grant myself a modicum of immortality,
How to break my barbed limits,
How to be competent.
The day at the salt mines ends,
I flee home broken,
To my plasterboard burrow of a bedsit,
I lay counting cracks in the wallpaper,
Watching the roaches play kiss-chase,
And the rust painting scores on the piping,
These four walls are my only companions,
And my only entertainment,
This dreary ceiling is my penny cinema,
Under these flickering lamps doing their dance,
I’m daydreaming about the corned beef,
That is my daily bread,
That is my ration,
I’m down on my luck,
Down and out,
Finance has thrown me out,
But at least I have those tins,
At least I have corned beef.
As I rise from my crypt,
I feel as if some presence rises with me,
An ethereal force,
Like my dreams have pierced forth from my mind,
Transmogrifying before my sleepy eyes,
Butterflies in every shade,
Once greyscale,
Then shifting to each and every colour in turn,
Phantasms in flight,
Fluttering around the room in lyrical patterns,
The projections grow more maddening,
Hypnotising my cortices,
Spelling out words that seem gibberish,
Images of make-believe realms,
Visual patterns put my brain through a blender,
Was any of this real?
Horror and euphoria and mystique brewed together,
Who knows?
But only the sunrise did quell the mania,
And weld my brain back together again.
Do you ever wish to fly away? To leave the ground that irks you, To take wing, To escape, To breathe in the zephyrs, To pirouette with flocks of birds, Seeing your harsh life as an ant below, Perhaps you wish to ascend even further, Beyond even the stratosphere, Through the sultry net of the sky, To the very stars, I believe we all often do, Plotting a path in our daydreams, Wishing and waiting, You see, The crux of this desire, Is purely to get away, Utterly and truly away.
What is left of a world,
Once all potential is wasted?
When no deified spirits are listening,
And even the ivory towers are vacant,
Just the muck,
The detritus,
The residue of hope,
No longer viable,
I see piles of it everywhere,
I swear even in the mirrors eye,
Wasted potential,
Grey and cracked in the sun,
Walking here and about,
Coughing and spluttering,
Debating and multiplying,
This mess,
This population,
It pretends to be concrete,
It feigns purpose,
When it is meant for naught but the drain.
I see it,
I feel it,
I wish it were a nightmare,
But it is manifest,
I spy it on the horizon,
Across waters not yet disturbed,
A miserable stormfront,
Foreboding in the heavy air,
This storm alludes to future pain,
Bolts like thrown tableware,
Humid air like the tension between foes,
Thunder like the lashes of expletives,
Clouds and lights like eidolic billboards,
Lamentation in arcing lights,
It waits in the distance,
A reminder that the great misery beckons.
People put so much credence in the past,
Like it’s a law under threat of death,
Those events are now all you are,
They supposedly cannot be escaped,
More dogged even than the reaper,
But I say the past is just a wound healed,
An obsolescence,
No more vital than knowing a mans favourite shade,
Yesterday should be obsolete,
Aside from the lessons learned,
Instead I propose you leave it behind,
Learn what you can and move forward,
It’s education not your whole being,
Pedagogy and not a cross to bear,
Look onwards to tomorrow,
There lies the true path after all.
Once I soared,
A plane built on dreams,
Yet lo did the winds change,
I was broken up in mid-air,
By bird strikes and heartbreaks,
My wings clipped,
Rock bottom welcomed me as a brother,
Fire and shrapnel were its gifts to me,
I am a crashed aircraft,
My frame was shredded,
With nuts and bolts scattered about my head,
Bound anew to the depressive earth,
Craters were my cellmates,
I work each day and night now,
Sweat and blood and kerosene,
To get myself back out of this wreckage,
And fly once more.
Ahh my friend,
With that face that sings detriment and praise both,
You ask,
What is wrong with me?
Both everything and nothing at all,
That is my answer,
Everything is wrong while nothing is wrong,
I smile loud and proud on the outside,
Inside is naught but a hollow porcelain doll,
My voice preaches homeliness,
While internally I tear down the wallpaper,
My visage shows no damage or cracks,
But broken glass is in these veins,
Do not worry for me my friend,
Nothing is wrong,
But everything is wrong.
