The Pretensions of the Talentless

I am not a writer. I don't delude myself anymore.
After all, a writer writes, don't they? I haven't, and I don't.
And yet I'd like to think that I do. Maybe it's some misguided need to be "deep",
to be profound or interesting,
or maybe I'm just scared of being so thoroughly unremarkable.
A writer could tell a story, but mine are vapid, half-baked or confusing.
A writer could tell their own story, but I live a life of idle happenstance.
Every few months I slap together a few dubious metaphors into a disjointed mess of "poetry",
and yet I feel no better or worse.
At least I can take comfort in knowing that most people share this trait,
this curse of being just as interesting as the caskets they work towards.

Or maybe I'm just a fucking asshole.

Palmistry Abbatoir

Churning, the violent turnaround of my mettle.
Tangled in my insides are the seeds of my concession,
and I know only too well the rot of withdrawal.
With fishing line and nickle, I sow my own fallow harvest.
My flesh shall bear the mark of repeated misgivings,
as I plot out the fresh scars to further make my hand the vandal,
the anarchic tool forged for my own disgrace.
And I continue to wade in viscera,
content to let the cycle continue.
When somebody finally reaches out, whose hand shall they grasp?
Will it be mine?
Or will it be the disfigured palm that I so vehemently force into being?
If only I possessed the patience to find out.

Darkroom

I started drinking film developing fluid,
I guess I hoped it would make my words more clear.
Every time I try to speak and all you get is a cough,
a little bit of blood and a pleading glance,
please remember I did it for you.
I am my own sweetest poison,
and you are my happiest condemnation.

Rabbits, They Called Them.

In the future, I hope we can exchange our hard-earned for criminal amnesty. We could go to bookstores to purchase bottles and rags, and steal petrol from overturned cars. Entire parades running with scissors, and we scoff at the term "reckless abandon", because it's far too fucking quaint.  The news anchor stopped making sense when we stopped demanding it, and everything is spreading far too fast. If I'm lucky I can trade my casket for a bus pass to nowhere.

I Know Not the Name of My Fear

Full dark, no dreams,
save for the one I carry with me

A memento from a hidden place

full of cruel machinations,
clawing, gripping,

edging at my senses,

desperate to be dredged up again

A childhood enemy,

one of my own misguided fears

It's two-story head emits

a terrifying scream 

like a murderous train,
grinding, 

screeching off of it's own rails

The relentless roar permeates the air,

an onslaught of rage that I know not the source

Even in sleep I cower

I withdraw in submission,

begging my own creation to wilt away,

to disappear back into some recessive void

my childhood dreams left open.

My cries drown, and so do I

When we walked through the city, you told me the pillars that held up the office block were to protect it from earthquakes.

Feet collide with concrete, and bones vibrate through their dermal confines.
Cold, hard ground provides the cathartic ache that draws us further into the cruel, thrashing void.
Absolute and total kinetic disarray envelopes the pillars that hold the body aloft,
and the energy explodes out of the joints.
Hands clamp to wrists, prison irons that we begged for,
chains that loop around and snare themselves,
and everything becomes a tangle.

But oh the laughter, the damning, maddening howls that ripple through the fields of walking meat,
the last gasp of sanity we can afford,
it makes sweeter music than the carrion harps could ever make,
strings of marrow and sinew singing in the weightless air.

And we dance ourselves to our graves.