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.
Hope,
It’s said to shine,
To glitter in luminescent butterflies,
Shades of all prisms,
It’s a currency we spend to continue our days,
A penny a day keeps despair at bay,
Hope,
It’s said to glimmer,
A diamond in your minds eye,
A beacon in the black,
The light at the end of a morose tunnel,
A reason to tread through another day,
Of course ofttimes it’s just a cheap bulb,
A train at the end of that tunnel,
Or perhaps it’s a marksman’s scope,
A trick of the sun,
Hope and optimism are manmade farces,
Reality is rarely so idyllic.
Some of us escape society,
Canines of every shade and shape,
Runaway hounds and beasts,
Shredding our way out of vanilla cages,
Longing to run with more wild packs,
Individuals with no collars,
We’re bad dogs,
Authority wants us on a leash,
Normality reaches out with nets,
But we tore off those fingers,
And ran free,
Slavering and howling,
Daily life becoming wildlife,
Dodging slings and dog whistles,
Animal control in public form,
We follow sweet scents of unrestraint,
Tonight we are not docile pets,
But wolves on the run.
An unknown contagion afflicts me,
Interests no longer interest me,
Voids are appearing in my brain,
Areas of interest fading to nothing,
Neurons stashing away my will,
Like my own brain in open rebellion,
Lining up my blindfolded diversions,
Against a blood-strewn wall,
And snuffing them out one by one,
The inside of my skull,
I don’t recognise it,
It’s a wasteland,
The voids spread,
Making me a hollow man,
I begin to consider surrender,
Too far gone.
I am a broken jaw,
A smashed nose,
I am a fetid wound,
An injury of a being,
I require correction,
Surgery of the self,
Something has gone wrong,
An unknown contagion has rendered me inhuman,
Put me under,
Gas to kill the monster,
These doctors in their gory aprons,
They will fix my inhumanity,
Scalpels to the various pieces of my soul,
Incisions and psychiatry,
When next my eyes reflect light,
Will I awaken as a man?
We’re a secret organisation,
We tell everybody,
This is a wacky institution,
The syndicate of silly,
And we’re always open,
So open the door and climb in the window,
Wipe your hat,
And hang up those moccasins,
There’s a brew boiling in the bath,
But to business my friend,
We’re all in the basement upstairs,
So best go up the down staircase,
Don’t trip,
These stairs bite you know,
We’ve been debating,
And arguing,
And debating about arguing,
We’re scholars of senselessness,
Humans to a man,
It’s all a bit silly,
That’s undeniable,
But that’s life in a nutshell.
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 past is dust,
Illusory and asphyxiating,
Memories kept in a domestic recreation,
A dolls house,
Boarded up windows and plastic veils,
Mental furniture coated in grey,
Left in that abandoned house,
Images of joy and grief,
Cracks filled with anger and serenity,
Dust unsettled by latter discourse,
It combats your urges to clean it up,
Caked deep on to chairs and tables,
Images burned into your brain,
You can’t wipe away this dust,
It remains in that house in your past.
Those asylum gate couldn’t keep me in,
Iron can’t contain madness,
And so I skip gayly down that cobbled road,
With no destination in my cracked minds eye,
Eccentricity taken to the wilderness,
I’m a headcase,
A lunatic,
My companions are this top hat and disembodied voices,
Singing like glamour in my ears,
Poppies and amber and brimstone in tongues,
I giggle lavishly at the sound,
Counting the stars orbiting my skull,
I’m a headcase,
A maniac,
I keep jaunting,
Crooked foot after crooked foot,
Being entirely my mad self,
A one man travelling circus,
Until those white-coats catch me.
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.
