Poetry Drafts

The longer I live the more pain at every remembrance, every recollection, and every revisitation of the forest seeded long ago.

The longer I live the thinner my skin, translucency revealing an alien presence: someone there but not there; broken branches and crumbling bark.

The longer I live the less words seem to matter, they shatter like aging glass mirrors meeting fists in fits of alienation; no windfall, merely trunks uprooted by the wrathful wind of ages.

The supposition of a loveless life lacks visible proof โ€“ evidently; ghosts twirl in soft tissue with superstitious choirs belting ditties behind veiled doors. The phantasm of a lovely life never becomes the protagonist; blindfolded mice line the corridors, searching for Roquefort; no pudding can be found.

I fear their faces. Vague outlines in the morning mist drawn by dry fingers like tokens of love across a steamed up shower shield.

I fear their blank faces and peering grey eyes staring back at us; delineated tadpole people ambling with the trepidations of drops slowly sliding down through moisture abandoned on vacant shower shields.

I fear their faces, low brows and blood-red diamond eyes splashed by hostile water; a shower head spewing out lies to entice our rotting corpses to confess; to bathe in sulphuric acid without need for shower shields.

I fear their faces, and the new day they bring.

Like the Heartless Like, red turned white, the Sarcastic Thumbs-up lack a first digit: the Wooden Club of approval crushes every skull, washes every mind โ€“ blank.

Being alive isnโ€™t living, my life needs more cowbell. I need more cowbell to feel an urge, for life to surge out of the engulfing quicksand. Throw me a rope, pull me away. Throw me a rope โ€“ with a cowbell.

Itโ€™s 4pm. Iโ€™m still in bed. Beyond the double duvet another world awaits: the app proclaims a world at 11C. Outside the solid walls frosty catsโ€™ whiskers gleam under scattered street light. It is getting dark again. I remain hidden.

Is there such a thing as morbid irony,
planning the aftermath of the day the ticking stopped,
planning the unwinding of the clock,
then merely wait
โ€“ for the silence

So many decisions to make; but not today. Tonight I will dine on liquorice and juniper juice, the Dutch courage flowing, and tomorrow I might decide on another future; another path towards infinity and the shadowlands beyond. There is much to decide, too much haze to find a path, less trodden or not.

So many decisions to make; but not today. Tonight I will dine on liquorice and juniper juice, the Dutch courage flowing, and tomorrow I might decide on another future; another path towards infinity and the shadowlands beyond. There is much to decide, too much haze to find a path, less trodden or not.

Copyright ยฉ 2021 @behind-the-veil-of-sanity / Hayden Veil

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