Sick

 All my friends are sick.

In different ways, of course,

individuality being their unifying constant.

But sick, all the same.

These weirdish days of waits and delays and ever worsening pain and malaise is just what they deem normal. 

This dawdling decline into decrepitude is hastened by atmospheric insolence,

 thunderheads sulking heavy hunches into agonising lightning strikes. 

Limitations shackles dragging back our aspirations into effigies and imitations, bonsai prototypes of dreams.

Making mockery of wellness, these once vital shells dress their despair in decadence and call it art.

Our Kinsugi-ed hearts are stronger for the mending.

And each creation spawned through desperation for distraction gifts the world another opening- beyond which one may escape.

So keep producing wormholes

of connection, of reflection.

Imbibe the time defying expressions

of ancient artists. learn their lessons.

Problems shared are decimated

Perceptions are deceptive and underrated 

in their role as shepherd of experience.

Never follow the Judas goat of self pity.

That's a slippy slope into the spiral of shame,

of self neglect, frustration, sorrow and blame.

Instead adopt Marlowe, 

“Quod me nutrit me destruit”.

Hedonistically strategic cultural retreat,

driven by necessity of horrors to defeat

Fury’s furnace fuelled, the flames are licking at our feet

until we dance a desperate dance;

the two step tightrope tarantella.

And this corporeal existence passes

out of bounds and interstellar.

Simple

 Being inclined to the over active mind 

makes you vulnerable

in ways unimaginable

to folk who’ve never been waifs or strays.

Every step on the back foot, 

drawing predatory thoughts and hungry looks

to scurrying attempts at connection.

This world seems so simple,

to those who find it simple.

The stacked deck favours the dealer.

Beg, borrow, steal 

mimic, mask. Never reveal

the hollow homunculus you feel,

or worse! Intensely solipsistic;

the only real person in a sea holographic

and loneliness becomes it's own sad satisfaction.

A “rebellion is better than tears” reaction

that eats at your happiness and interactions

until you're accustomed to numb.

You watch others’ battles won,

disaffected, trying to work out how it's done

or at least avoid pitfalls in the future.

And with time an illusory feature 

of other people's lives, who can plan anyway?

Why strive to do more than survive

when that's all you can manage most days?

And that's pushing it.

The path out of the shit is too well disguised

and buried behind the sharks’ smiling lies.

Societal standards seem illogically unwise

and they play the games with loaded dice

and rules they won't explain.

Every minute gain is minimised

by mistaken intentions. Subtle knives

and not so subtle, wasted time 

of trauma born. Mistrustful eyes

turn away from the world.

and back to the half life of disconnection.

That way is safer.

This world is simple

to those who find it simple.

By all means, take advantage of your advantages,

but notice the disadvantaged are taken advantage of

by systems they can't get a purchase on,

and people they dared to rely upon.

And every dismissive assumption you hold

in hands that have never been burned by the cold

is a nail on the bed you told

 us we made on our own.

So we'd better lie in it.

I'm not buying it.

This dance of the butterflies 

is so despised despite it's beauty.

Our average age on day of death is only 12 plus 40.

Disparities so distant instances of juxtaposition jarr intensely out of rhythm and with lyrical precision present suffering as noble when it's not.

It's not.

Applauding us for overcoming obstacles you placed

as if adjudicators in some Ninja Warrior race

feels disingenuous at best.

Gladiators, ready?!

Potential lost is our Roman empire.

No one here dreams of paradise.

This world is simple

 to those who find it simple.

Not the ones you label simple.

They're the most complex of all.

After The Storm

 

I never thought the I would side with an aggressor.

“Never let the means unjustify the ends"

But it's hard to have honour suffocating under pressure 

When the enemy of the enemy's temporarily your friend.

12 step. Goose step. Misstep. Fall.

Fatalistic, impotent. 

Flailing fetid firmament. 

Perpetually panic-perched

In fight or flight frozen.

But the show's on.

So it goes on.

Mask in metaphor,  mask in reality.

Putting  on the face of a sunny personality. 

Scars in metaphor, scars in reality.

No more question of my strength or my sanity.

Crossfire massacre of crazed masculinity;

No Man's Land is my permanent vicinity;

With extra helpings of aggression at Christmas,

“for old times’ sake" it's a sentimental sickness.

Threat-making, bear-baiting sarcastic cowardice.

Rage-churning, bridge-burning emotional terrorist. 

Promises vomited into pits of lies, bilious

dismissive, supercilious 

and sneering in your bitterness,  you're hideous.

My defence is the simplest;

nullifying narcissistic assaults on my peacefulness 

by finding you ridiculous.

You're piteous and less than this.

I am the carapace that weathers every storm.

I'm the arrow-struck, 4ft thick, besieged fortress wall.

I am Horatio standing on the bridge.

I'm a nanny-goat protecting her kid.

You are a buzzing gnat,

A toxic stinking sewer r*t,

A remnant of an era that

is over and I won't go back.

I've lost count of the times you've tried to inspire suicide 

But my success is measured in the things I have survived

and every time I smile I know I'm breaking free of your control.

My laughter is the fanfare at the rebirth of my soul.

I am stronger now that I'm free.

I am seizing liberty 

My choices are my own (inside constraints of living)

My future is unwritten.

It's only just beginning 

And my life's my own, 

My life's MY OWN. 

(In case anyone was wondering,  we don't use the word R A T in this country. It brings terrible misfortune.)

Comprehensive Revelation

They’ve worked out I’m a cyclist, but not a pedaled clown.

I don’t take ‘roids to speed me up, I use yellows to slow me down

and I need stabilizers still, or I can’t get ‘round corners

without gaining either enemies or self-destructive fawners.

I sashay a land of sinkholes, of glorious gushing geysers;

of embarrassment and excellence in equally enormous sizes.

Every other diag-nonsense has appeared to be just that

but this one fits as snugly as sub-cutaneous fat.

Visceral rage throttles rational thought.

No focus. Too many ideas cavorting.

Spitting out flows to fight my fate.

Racing up and down with no baseline break.

I know it’s medicatable, I know that there is therapy

but redefining thought processes doesn’t seem to work for me.

All this linguistic trickery is far too far innate to me

for all their forms of CBT to make a difference you can see.

I’ll give it another go, you know?

God knows, since the closure of the floatation tank

I’m irrationally rankle-able at an elevated pace.

I’ll go back to star jumps, routines and early starts

to fight off the fidgets, the doldrums and broken hearts.

The mechanics of coping shook their heads in despair

when they saw my brakes in such disrepair

but what state would you be turning up to work in

if your life felt like bungee jumping in a whirlwind?

Nihilistic hedonist, life and soul;

or following the wind up bird into the endless hole.

The Other Man in the Photograph

I got to the scene and wouldn’t you know,

there were people about, watching the show.

Squinting eyes under clammy palm,

I can just about see it.

A swallow.

A circle clears around me,

tainted by people’s realization of the role I am to play.

Unclean.

A hush.

Mine are the legs of a broken man.

The first step on the sand is a half-trip.

Drill Sergeant Duty barks in my ear:

“Get on with it son!”

While Compassion is left dry-heaving,

haunted eyes on the shore.

When I reached him, he was

half floating

hair fanning, like

hopeful fingers reaching for a

honeyed future.

I squat.

My shoes sink in sympathy and sodden sand.

My hands reach

Uniform baptized

I cradle him.

Skin puffy with salt

my teeth grit as my throat is assaulted

by the sickly coating of stench.

For him, I stand.

Valkyries do not ride for children who drown at sea,

but I carried him with professionalism and dignity.

Later, I went home, kissed my wife,

put my uniform in the wash.

Kissed my kids good night.

I stood under the shower for an hour and a half

scrubbing and soaping, but still got a waft

of wasted life every now and then.

Went to bed and tried to sleep knowing

tomorrow

I’ll do it all over again