you don’t
write poetry:
you go and soak yourself in the elements,
and then let them write through you.
you don’t
write poetry:
you go and soak yourself up
in as much love and hatred
in as much medicine and poison
as possible
and then bleed them onto paper.
you don’t write poetry,
you don’t move souls,
you don’t inspire,
you don’t make
anyone
feel.
you first
are moved;
you first
are inspired;
you first
feel
with all that you are;
and then,
you lay yourself
bare
on paper.
you don’t write poetry.
I’m sick of being sick
tired of being tired
anguished by anguish
burdened by burdens
fed up with this emptiness.
i pray to god
for something real,
yet i don a mask.
how many candles
have i blown
how many pennies
have i thrown
wishing for love
in a heart
that’s closed?
i plead,
i beg,
to eat,
be fed
…
but i purse
my lips.
don’t
do that
don’t
look at me like that.
don’t
make me hope.
nothing
more cruel.
i won’t
let you in,
though the warmth
in that gaze
threatens to melt
the ice on my heart.
things
that i love,
they tend
to hurt me.
i fail
to see the barbs
till I’m
in their arms.
..
i saw
the garden
from afar:
lush. green. alive.
you
welcomed me in.
as soon as i stepped foot,
green
became black.
all
that was alive
wilted.
what was gold, in my hand,
became ash.
stay away
i signed my life away
when i met
your gaze
one blink:
never the same.
i have a special affinity
with dead things.
they understand me,
i understand them.
there was a time
when i
was alive.
i dislike
thinking about it.
remembering:
it’s like
the past’s warmth
seeps through the now’s
cracks,
like god’s knife
cut a gash
through the dark.
it bleeds light.
it burns my eyes.
i’m a qubit
whatever you want
to see
that’s
what i’ll be
i wish
i could be
a transistor
wish
i could be
one or the other
if that’s
what you need,
go love another.
how can you say
you love
Me
when i
don’t have
a self
to be loved?
you love
your own
reflection.
you
are narcissus,
i
am water.
i will play
this role for you
so convincingly.
i’ll be clay for you
shape Me
however.
oh,
what a privilege,
to be made
in your image!
how can you say
you love
Me
when i
am nothing?
the fuller this love makes you,
the emptier
i grow.
my veins are your spouts:
drink.
it isn’t self harm
if i can’t feel a thing
so-called reality met its finality when you broke the chains of causality — “what a malady,” he said madly, “to obey rationality and its suffocating apathy, when actually to live happily is to discard what’s known factually and to let your heart lead — passionately.”
a life of confinement needs a moment of atonement — out of character, the 4th wall broken. a flash, a bolt, the cell door open. “Go– run,” the fates have spoken. the mind electrified, forever awoken.
the touch of fate
is a strange thing:
she grazes your lover
with the tip of her finger
then suddenly:
she is sand
through your arms,
dust in the wind.
yet your lover’s ivy
does not leave too–
no, it sprawls
through the chambers
of your heart and mind
the ones you thought
were well and truly locked.
love, love, love:
its illusion is this:
seeing eternity,
where your love
is a heart drawn,
initials enclosed,
by the sea shore
with your fingertip
in the sand.
One wave:
all it takes.
but i will fall
for this ruse
every time.
i will fall
eagerly.
yea.
i will fall.
nonchalance:
a prison.
nonchalance:
the schism,
between passion
& living.
chalance,
an affirmation:
you have a heart,
it’s beating.
so so close
but worlds away
like Adam’s outstretched finger,
i know not the warmth of your touch.
that tragic scene
longing for fusion:
to be created
is to be separate.
who am i to blame?
how can i be both
wounded youth
and wise adult?
it makes you uncomfortable
is it your fault, is it not
i do not know.
I’m reminded of that old fear:
who would i be
if i were born
in Nazi Germany?
i lower my pointed finger.
raised in the new world,
you in the old.
shock.
denial.
anger.
acceptance.
i found that forgiving you…
it was like accepting a loss,
the grief final.
these roots go so deep
but that bramble cuffs you
to that rock-like dirt.
I’m done breaking my back
to pull you free.
I now walk away
and leave you be.
I love you —
But ma,
I need to be me
tell me what would change
i’m already a ghost
it would be the same
i’m already a ghost
i’m sorry for the pain
i need to be a ghost…
empty in my chest
forgotten is the soul
though i did my best
forgotten is the soul
how could i forget
the rot inside my soul
farewell, farewell,
it’s time to be a ghost
this is the real hell
and all of you are ghosts
know that it’s been swell
to each of thee a toast
so if you feel a breeze,
know that its just me
the ghost.
THE CLOSET MYSTIC 