Mania is like an itch

you can't scratch.

It travels through your body

always just beyond reach.

Until you twitch,

smacking your head into the wall.

I took a bottle of sleeping pills

and I'm still awake.

For three more days.

Don't speak to me

on any seriousness.

My tears may form a river

at your feet

with a single word.

Hiding in the woods

I will myself to sleep.

But it's all in vain.

I have so very many things to say but they never come out easily on their own.

The issues at my hand are varied and strewn, but all part of a complete picture, like a garden. I have to explain them properly, if I’m to explain them at all, because only that way will you fully understand it.

I’ve seen too much of the back of people. I’ve seen too much of their teeth, and their nails, and their blood. I’ve seen too many double-faces, masks, cloaks, and daggers.

My scars are many. I wear them as a proud symbol of my self-salvation in an indifferent society, but also as a sobering reminder of the depths to which I have been plunged in my short life.

The violence in the world wreaks havoc on my mind. I wonder endlessly at the cruelty in human nature.

I think people can’t help but lie. A lie to protect or further their interests, or a lie to protect someone else’s feelings, or a lie to simplify a situation, they all are obscene coverings over truths, and a truth is an indelible fact, even if multiple interpretations of it simultaneously apply.

I can only speak for myself when I say, I long to know the naked truth, as it is, or was, and not as somebody would like it to be.

Selfish, or deceitful, or presumptuous lies are an insult, and a deprivation, to my mind.

I don’t care about anyone’s wounded pride, nor anyone’s naked shame, nor anyone’s loathsome secrets.

I want to know the truth for my own sake, so that I can be accurately informed before I make decisions, and judgements about the world.

You can swear up and down to a falsehood, and fudge the story to a vanilla reduction of the truth, but as I learned at a tender age, the truth will always out, no matter the ephemera of the deceit we may weave over one-another, and ourselves.

So I must make a decision, and it must be in my own best interests.

And it must come after the ugly business of sorting fact from fiction.

Alas, my only tools are problem-solving, and intuition.

I told you that I dreamed of this very thing happening, only, in my dream, you told me clearly and straightforwardly that you had moved on. I could respect and accept your decision, as much as it broke my heart.

But in reality, there was a protracted period of curious aloof separation, during which I began periodically asking, in earnest, for the truth, but what you repeatedly gave me, as I later discovered per my own investigations, were lies. Blatant untruths.

Assertions of outright falsehoods as fact.

I can feel it, as clear as day, when you kiss me. You’re just obliging. You’re not wild about me anymore. I can feel your reservations.

I make a brilliant sentimental fool. This is why I am so easily manipulated.

You have come to mean the world to me and now I’ve found out it was hollow all along.

You had found my replacement before you looked me again in the face.

What am I supposed to do with all this room I’ve prepared for you in my soul?

Letting go is excruciating because I know it’s for good, there can be no reversing the decision, and despite your throbbing betrayals I still feel compelled to offer the mercy of another chance to justify yourself.

But in my heart, I know.

My nightmares were true, this is how we’ve become. I know I really must go.

I just have to trick myself into cutting the vein from me to you.

A maiden traveling far and back

pretended there was naught she lacked;

yet when her needs came clear again,

found more to ink than met the pen.

In search of golden straw, not black,

a maiden traveling far and back

redounded past beginnings small

to fill each empty fodder stall

with honeyed hay of finest strand.

Inquisitive in fashion grand,

a maiden traveling far and back

encountered fairies, far off track.

Returning then, from fantastiqué,

to woo her farmer, mildly meek,

she lost her way again. Alack!

A maiden, traveling far and back.

It felt like a good day for a light-hearted quatern.

http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/quatern.html

Ever heard the story of Seema the Giraffe? His neck was long, so long that he could see into the future. Day after day, year after year he would stretch his neck to the firmament, look over the vast expanses of time and space, and see all that awaited mankind. When he would descend to the earth, the Villagers would gather round and listen to Seema describe the future to come and they would act accordingly.

The Villagers worshipped Seema. Not only was he a beautiful animal to gaze upon, but every now and again his visions from the clouds would come true. If a Hunter needed courage for the hunt, Seema would tell him of the great beasts he would snare and how it would feed the village for weeks. If a woman was worried about giving birth or raising children, Seema would assure them they possessed all things needed to be successful. For years he lived a life of leisure, supported by the food, water, and adoration supplied by gullible Men and Women, frightened of living a life without certainty.

To lose Seema was to lose a conduit to the supernatural, and with the uncertainties of their natural environment one couldn’t afford to test fate. No important decision was made without the consultation of Seema, and like any living being with the ability to bathe in the power of reliance, he began to grow arrogant.

One evening a great tempest fell upon the land. By daybreak all the meager trinkets and possessions had been destroyed. Sturdy huts and altars once marveled and adorned now reduced to rubble. Crops that were once vibrant and dependable now leveled to mere dust. A third of the Inhabitants perished as well and Seema was nowhere to be found.

Befuddled by what had fallen upon them, the remaining Villagers went on a quest to find Seema.

For miles on foot, through the dry lands of the east and the Northern marsh they searched for him to no avail. Maybe he too had perished? Maybe he had been drawn up to the next life with their forefathers? All hope had been lost, until by chance, they found Seema fast asleep, nestled in an abandoned cave, surrounded by the food, water and valuables they had provided.

The Villagers awakened Seema asking, “Why did you not warn us? Why did you leave us? What do we do now?” To their surprise, Seema began to laugh saying, “Did you not hear the knocking of Thunder in the sky? Did you not see the greyness form in the clouds? Did you sleep through the crackling of the trees?”

Overcome with anger the villagers shouted, “But you did not prepare us. You did not give us words from on high which could have lead us to a wise decision. Had you prepared us, we would have escaped this fate. This is your fault!”

Again Seema laughed, lowered his great neck to the Villagers, and with a calm voice whispered, “If you can’t see the obvious, you deserve everything that has befallen you.”

With that, the Villagers parted ways with Seema The Giraffe and headed back toward their once vibrant home never to be seen again.

Seema, he went back to sleep.

We are people controlled by a higher sense

Other people who control our money by the nearest cent

Careers and jobs to provide labor for the wealthy

They hold us back from our potential, feed us food that isnt healthy

They are the Broom, sweeping us into the pan that we reside

Us simple Dust folks divided by a side

Its either east, north, south or even west

A different ghetto where they all think they are the best

But the police dont care what home you live in

If you break the Broom's rules itll be a cell you're living in

Something as stupid as going 5 miles over a speed limit can cost riches

Then the Broom laughs because our bank accounts gain stitches

The most successful of the Brooms never graduated high school

If you look back most of them didnt graduate Junior high school

Yet here we are, learning something that isnt even valuable

Taught to sit down, shut up, and raise our hands like we're malluable

Just to go to college, a program to which they own

Move you into a different place, far far away from home

To study careers paths they create so you can work

But you'll work for them, over your shoulder they will lurk

This countrys in a cycle, thats why we're at war

I bet you didnt notice because of drama that you endure

Our lives are being played with, success is a cant

Welcome to America, where we're just Dust in a Pan