Near silence or chaos;
what can I say that might mean anything
without being angry, or rude
in the cool of the sun that dapples the inside of the room
with golden color and liquid heat
which, of course, would never transfer to my icy coffee;
my starting of the day
I am wrong in having the few emotions that do manage to surface
through this quicksand numb facade,
though all I know, is just that,
and so there is more anger at myself this time -
must I criticize or be so criticized
what judgements I may make about the state of existence
confuse the issues already at hand,
though, I know not what they are -
those who choose their actions carefully
and then, my words tumble out of my rude, gaping mouth
and insult and hurt them, the ones who did nothing to me,
except ring the phone loudly, and I answered,
unaware of what I should expect
and there I lie in the center of hostility that could be mine,
but wasn't so, until that moment; and where do I go,
but badly through an excuse that isn't one at all;
now I have distinguished nothing, and the pain shoots across
the wires in my mind short-circuit
and I have lost the safety of something that maybe never was
a good thing after all
and where is my place to be
the self that I thought I had inside me
that doesn't really have a name or location
on the planet of my world
that is so very corrupted and dissatisfied
and mulled about in
the wasteland of the homeless ones
on the streets of insane asylums and garbage pits where
all the refuse of the lives are placed in an incongruent manner
and then, cursed for being disorganized
like me in mine
and I wonder what my path is
to remembering the past that haunts so viciously
and the tremor runs through my body
bringing the volcano to eruption
which I must control and cover over,
because it is not right, it is not safe
to unleash the groaning demons of hatred
from my own soul onto others that haven't actually harmed anyone
and I cannot play as others do,
for fear of being wrong again
where the backlash might land on me
and I will be consumed by the evil temptress that mocks
my intelligence and the man outside my vision
takes away my sanity as he gives another lecture
of how I have destroyed my life and so many others
by making the wrong decisions,
and choosing unwisely, as he would have done,
I am therefore, changed into the pitiful, weeping child
without tears or sound
the one emotion that may be shown
is the calm, placid, disorderly contempt that will never be,
as it would certainly mean death and eternal damnation
but what does that matter to me
when I haven't any way of believing the goodness
he speaks of so hypocritically
as they all do when they preach at me for disrupting
the general pretending of servitude
and the anguish is beyond their comprehension,
since I don't happen to have the words to explain
the descriptions of the vile sludge and slime that fill me with poison
and the way I can become dragged under into the self-hatred
that lives and reigns so well off me,
and I contemplate where my energy and will to live might have gone,
but do I have to question
the righteousness and commonplace egotism
while I have nothing,
but the masochist is coming to take my spot
and I could be a mass-murderer
like the others that change their identity
to fit the moment of freedom
and laugh in my face for being so stupid
for thinking that I might have made it
and created a new beginning for myself among the ashes,
because the phoenix in me has had its last dance
of life and death, and spans of time are done
in the holocaust of a lifetime of torture
something that people will never believe or acknowledge,
and knowing the truth does not mean that you get to be happy
as the blackness covers the clouds of wisdom that never were,
the hazy picture of surreal countries of antagonistic armies
where the cruelty and dictators nudge their way into your dreams
of how nightmares slowly confuse the reality
and make nothing out of the terrors of the head that,
at one time, could be seen reading through the eyes of a child
with broken bones and soreness, an ache in the blood
to never have to go to the haunted house again
with the ogre and his famous, cookie-baking wife -
if only she would fill them with poison and sugar,
but I never had any say in what I could do, or not,
as might have been my objective,
because my opinion has never been anything other than crushed noise
screeching out on overly tight brakes of common sense;
that I must keep my mouth shut was the requirement,
especially in the days when I couldn't yet put a sentence together -
and why should I have a say in how my life plays out;
I have never been smart enough,
according to the rest of the world
where other people have genius,
and I, only a mediocre mentality; and the capabilities are small
and insignificant in the eyes of those who can see,
but not me, because I have to hide away
so they won't know quite how much of a fool I am,
although, I'm not really trying to trick them -
the respect was never there as I knew well,
because I couldn't make sense to anyone else, and now,
looking back, I see that I never made sense to myself, either;
I have merely lived a joke, even though it wasn't funny,
at least, not to me, since I can't figure out what humor is
and I find myself confused on what is what
and where my feet are taking me;
if into the other realm of change and make-believe
where all the little children get hurt for saying stupid things
and being too dumb to stay out of the way, and stay out of sight,
because when the evil hears the pleas for help it can whisk them away
into the nothingness that the ravens warn about
because they know the dark magic, as well as the beauty,
the spirits of the trees and the earth, and the wind;
they have the answers to secrets,
and knew their call and their shape
and that nobody could ever save me,
but it will all end its insanity eventually anyway.
© 1997 by Morgan Wolfe
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