Dark Poetry Prose Poetry October 14, 2004 Dark Poetic Prose

9:11pm thursday 10-14-04

life is an intruder in my head. an intrusion. that's all it's ever been. take me back to my prison. i don't know how to live outside its cages.

paint me whiskers and call me a kitten. and i will roll over on my back and eagerly play with.

put mirrors inside my eyes and turn off the light. watch the glow. as it reflects what i am seeing. just like this is.

crack me open like a bottle of beer. the carbon escaping as the head rises. drink me donw just like that visceral liquid. to make all the bright blank spots in your mind appear.

hold it up to lack of light. the darkness so self assured. stern soldiers with loaded weapons. ready to fight.

light me like a cigarette. set fire to the cancer and inhale it. take it deep inside. to the bottom of your lungs. and feel the poison finishing the work it had begun.

wrap me up like a broken limb. in hard plaster to keep it from moving. encase the damage to stop it from spreading. immobilize the defect. time will do the rest.

9:26pm 10-14-04 thursday

notations in kind. tripping over my words. leap frogging rhymes. notations on. notations off. smooth and supple like when flesh is still taut.

noting as it were the changes. the constants. the forgotten and the lost. how it evolves into someone else all together. from myself. to us. to them.

now. and then.

as much as it meant. i miss the feeling now. stars lacking a moon they've grown accustomed to.

tide moving not now with nothing to tug on.

it grew tiresome. i did too. it always grows tiresome. and in our weary stupor we return to the tiresome we are most familiar with.

10:06pm 10-14-04 thursday

in portions they mix. readily. butter to bread. in silence it sings. overtures to the gods of i wish.

my experience is the apex. my heart the base. as the mountain climbs us.

surer now than ever that the steps are taking. not being taken by.

with what does that leave us?

i try to tell it true as i can. paraphrasing time and quoting emotion. i try to see it from all sides. but that wears me out. all that running around to catch a glimpse of all those persepctives. it wears me out. i try to understand everyone's side. but i am tired.

in potions like the witches' brew. toil and trouble and those such cantations. over flame. over kettles scorched and overused. the ingredients fuse. the magic always means to.

but that's how it is. we're not sorcerers. we're not anything but human. we're not winning or losing. we're just trying so hard not to fail. that even in success we're still a long way off from happiness.

life just sits there. it always does. waiting for us to make our moves. shuffle the pawns. count how many are left. guard the king. dance the queen. beware that checkmate coming as the rook assumes.

life just sits there. hasn't it always. a shadow in a wheelchair. not doing anything. always waiting on your next strategy. it watches. it 's drawn to the drama like the cameras of reality tv. it begs all the quesitions i had been avoiding.

so i wait with it. move it from my shoulder to my side. so i befriend it. just another inmate in this prsion canmp we call life.

i keep one eye on the gas chamber and the other on my allies.

i keep one finger on the trigger and the other on bullet. desperate for an exuse to pull on it.

as old as the song gets. just wait awhile. it'll sound new again.

burn me like a match. smell the sulfur as it muses. the fire's true. it always has been.

the flame that dances at it's heart reminds me of the one in mine i still remember. the promise of warmth easily revoked. the hope of light so delicate.

dependent on so many factors. all its power. all its burn. nothing if.

10:38pm 10-14-04 thursday

i tried. so much i did. to be human. to be one of them. every morning i'd crawl inside that skin. but by evening it would have always melted.

a candle to the flame. it had no choice other than to submit.

i tried. i really did. to be born again. to live. every time i'd wake up i'd try on another skin. but no matter what size. they never seemed to fit.

i'd sit and listen. for hours i did. humbly taking it all in. like a microphone i'd push their speeches through to the speaker system. so that time would hear them. only an echo of the life they'd presumed i'd lived. only a shadow of the feelings they assumed had been dealt with.

i tried. i honestly did. to wear the world around my neck as a pendant. like the rest of them. but the clasp would never catch. it would always slip off. again and again. until nothing remained except the marks on my neck.

the center of the flame. part of it. the heart. but untouched. unfelt. the reason, but not the evidence. trapped inside those walls. everythiing that makes it happen. but not what they know at all. everything that gave them what they have, but nothing you can takeaway after the fact.

i tried. i did. i turned the porchlight on and soldered the switch. i watched it glow. saw it burning away. the filament turning on itself. until all that remained was the darkness.

just as it has been.

just as life ordained. memories cast in marble. sculptures hard. just as the heart insists. what they love. not you, but themselves in your reflection.

what we love. if ever. wrinkled pages hanging loosely to their spirals as the springs adjust. what we love. who we do. neither tommorw nor yesterday. only moments.