After I Wrote This

As far back into the past as I dare remember

I have always found myself trapped inside me

—

My brain my brain my brain

my brain has locked me somewhere between woe

and fear, fear and tragedy, pessimism and

—

<hope?>

—

Far too long spent on the inside and not

on the outside —

a hermit that overthinks everything

everything from intrusive thoughts

and suicide ideation

to the ups and downs of superstardom

if it ever happened to befall me.

—

<hope?>

—

After “I Wrote This”

—

I am the disease —

<>

decrepit mould,

throat-clogging stench of too little sleep,

too little time to think.

<>

Arbitrator of the profane, decidedly indecent,

I decant the thing we should not name.

I obliterate you

from behind my mask of pretentious wordsmith,

sneering as my blunt-prose trauma connects.

<>

I am the one

you can’t ignore

but hate to say you admire.

<>

Drown your sorrows in my cup,

let it overflow

<>

with bleak salinity.

—

I sought these words

after I sought the words for “I wrote this.”

—

I was and will always be —

<>

the Nightmare,

the Horror,

<>

the clawing, sharpened talons of disrepute

engraving my message into your neck, your heart, your loins.

—

I downpour my sickness

into the entry points of your brain;

your mind is mine between the taut, sacrilegious lines I pen

for the kids of tomorrow and what-not.

<>

I annihilate the confines

of the home you call prison, the cell.

I hide behind my mask no more;

the face I call my own,

<>

I wear it as my calling card

so you can see me — and suffer.

<>

Drown, drown, and wallow in the cup

of your own

<>

bleeding melodramas.

—

“I” wrote “This”

after reading something arbitrary that sparked.

—

I wear this mask of permanence —

literary master, the face of modern apathy.

I question everything —

aside from a good dark pint of Guinness.

<>

Not a monster,

not a guru;

a troublemaker.

<>

A prosaic deviant, hell-bent on disruption

through letters and sounds,

syllables and words,

phrases and lines of desecration.

<>

Drown —

in tears of joy, of lust, of fear,

<>

of sorrow.

—

But the ringing in my ears,

the ringing in my ears,

the ringing in my ears —

—

But the sweat running down my back,

the sweat running down my back —

—

is taking shape and taking form

and becoming more

—

and I

<>

I am becoming less.

—

“I wrote this,”

but “I” am not responsible

for your consumption,

for your communal communion,

or the sanctification or devastation

my words may deliver.

—

I washed my hands clean —

I wrote this, past tense.

—

Drown.

Drown —

<>

please drown.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: Nice and simple, experimental poem.