Dark Poetry Prose Poetry February 29, 2004 Dark Poetic Prose

02-29-04 sunday 9:15 pm Brick NJ

it's not sex that i need. it's affection.

and when i can't get it, it's no surprise that i might try to lie to myself. tell myself that sex is affection. even when it's not.

the problem with sober is that all your thoughts are so clear and accurate. every truth you want to avoid broad as daylight. every little hole in yourself so barren that each breath you take echoes endlessly, empty throughout.

but drinking it away just isn't the beautiful salvation you had hoped it would be. because it works for a while. you drown yourself in the crisp taste of its manufactured apathy. and all is well again. at least as well as you can expect.

unfortunately, at some point the chemical reaction changes. and instead of causing you to not care how you feel, that same drug tends to make it that much more evident.

it starts out as something that gives you the ability to look right at your sadness and tell it you don't care what it is. but then you use it so much that it changes from an ally to a nemesis. instead of dulling the ache. it begins to sharpen that blade.

02-29-04 sunday brick NJ 9:20pm

the night slithers under my skin like the drugs i sometimes play with. it changes my blood. makes it thicker. makes it move so slow. so deliberate.

there are times when you want them to come and save you. and if they do you are truly grateful. and then there are times when you shrink back into the folds of your aloneness and wonder why you ever wanted anyone to pull you out of them. wonder why you answered when you knew you were just wasting their breath.

and i vascilate constantly between the need to be rescued and the urge to escape. i hover like a stormcloud that's afraid to rain.

what could anyone do with this empty bag of tricks? what could anyone want with?

when melancholy turns me purple does it compliment your eyes? when anger turns me blue does it make you think of the ocean? how well it manages an eternity alone and still never changes.

i feel like i'm running out of words. because there are only so many ways to say that i'm unhappy. only so many means to metaphorically hide your true message.

never once did i want anything and expect to get it. but that's not to say that i wasn't desperate to have it.

then there are some things that are just as difficult to want as they are to give up. then there are some ocassions when losing is the only option.

02-29-04 sunday 9:46pm brick NJ

this soft hair does nothing for me. and this soft skin still goes untouched.

these words that i befriend, never do befriend me.

that soft bed feels hard to me. those cotton sheets like ice..

this soft hair is for only me to feel. and this soft skin won't be this soft indefinitely.

these words i worship always seem to lead me astray. these words i worship don't listen when i supplicate.

those skirts that hide secretly in my closet. they never did anything other than degrade me. and those nails i used to grow long to polish, well now i chew them down until there's nothing left.

this soft hair, only i feel it. this soft skin wants to be felt again.

but you can't just touch it. it needs affection. you can't just want it. it needs to be loved.