"i'm sorry but i'm just thinking of the right words to say
i know they don't sound they way i plan them to be"
the days flow like cold honeytainted with sedative.
there is something addictive about falling away
letting go
to loosen the grip and relinquish the control . . .
something slightly seductive in the mindless and numbing banality
of day to day life
i've anesthetized myself from thought
i walked out with nary a backward glance
i have hidden my words behind bad jokes
that grow more lame by the day
until i feel like one more moment
may cauterize the open, weeping wounds
and i'd be lost, adrift forever . . .
somehow, some days, i'm not sure if that is a bad thing.
there are times i don't feel the words and thoughts
there are seconds on end when i feel quiet and alone
minutes, even, when the junkie's base need to be fed doesn't scream in my blood.
but all too soon the jones comes rushing back with crippling ferocity
the words surface all jumbled and flowing crazily over my tongue
ricocheting off my teeth with no escape
until i swallow them back down
with the taste of bile fresh in the back of my throat.
i am strangling my muse
and choking the fuck out of myself in the process.
i hide in the leaves other worlds
crouching behind letters and thoughts of someone else
running from what i am,
who i am
and stanching the hemorrhaging flow with the filthy rags
that can't absorb nearly enough
and wish i could wash them with the tears that won't flow.
i feel deadened yet not dead
i feel feral yet caged and broken
i feel stifled by the very things that i once hoped would free me.
i thought this was ideal
until i lived behind the picket fence
and learned the price of the pearls
and the cost of the gingerbread trim.
still i push myself down harder into the mould
that is slicing away pieces of my soul.
i am so very selfish and stupid
i want all this and freedom
i want to eat my cake and have your dream, too.