Dancing phantoms
Dressed in rags and blood
Travelled the seas
To eternity
Where our nightmares plucked
us from childhood
Poetry
Cigarettes
It’s the 10th day of NaPoWriMo and creatively I’m a little constipated. I’ve managed to squeeze this out, though I’m unsure of it.
Cigarettes burn
Indifferent to your lungs
Memories scattered
As ashes
On the cusp
But never becoming
Anything recalled
Invisible mental illness
The sun penetrates through the blinds
Dust floats in the split streams of light
But it doesn’t infiltrate the mind
And that’s the insanity or is it sanity
That is mine
There are no cracks to seep through
I’m not cracking up
I’m sealed up, only breakable inside
~
There is a political theory called, ‘the horseshoe theory’ and I think a similar argument can apply to mental health.
See what I believe is, a little delusion goes a long way to a functioning adult. Delusion is automatically regarded as some negative thing only mentally ill people have, but I swear by this, a little delusion is like the heart of functioning in this world.
Some people become so deluded that they no longer function, their heart has enlarged if you will.
But there is another type of person, the kind of person who can’t function because they harbour no delusions or don’t believe enough in any potential delusions they could have. It’s an affliction I call severe sanity. Of course, me thinking I’m too severely sane for this world could be seen as a symptom of insanity…. But of course, severe insanity can look much like insanity. Indeed the two merge to look like one in the same when you break it down and see that both the insane and the severely sane can both become dysfunctional in similar ways. Hence my mention of the horseshoe theory above.
Volkswagen van
I want a Volkswagen van
So I can be the travelling man
Pretending to be Jesus
Fronting a one man band
Playing harmonica
With a guitar
Cymbals strapped to my knees
Making it look like a breeze
Playing in all different keys
Please
Don’t blow
Down my house of cards
I’ve worked so hard
To try and become a man of ease
Let me have just this one
Please?
I’m a prisoner
I’m a prisoner of ghosts
A host to tea parties
Where they haunt the table
Pouring water till it spills
Another soul to kill
what does that make me
I am the pendulum that swings
To knock down these walls
I tried to be so strong
But I’ve not got the wings
To fly away from this storm
And I wish I could say
That I think I’ll be okay
But I don’t believe, I never did anyway
I keep it all inside
Think I’ll lose something
If I show you this
Darkness within
And I know even now
This is just a fucking glimpse
And I won’t let you further in
You still won’t know what I’m dealing with
I watch these men and women
Walking around with hearts on their sleeves
People think I’m one of them
Cause I write these words
But it’s all appearances
You have no clue what’s on inside
I’m insane, does that make me less insane
Than those that don’t keep it contained?
Cause I lock mine in a cage
Only let it run behind closed doors
Seal it up in wardrobes and drawers
I’m medicated, keep it medicated
But there is a limit
And the monsters still wage these wars
Am I less insane than those
That don’t keep it contained?
Does that mean that I’m in less pain?
I was always told, in the case of an accident
It’s the silent victims first
Because they’re in critical condition
Well what does that make me
When it’s all silent
While they scream
Invisible man
I am the ghost in between these walls
I write and write
I writhe and writhe
I cry and cry
I scream, I scream
I shout, I shout
I have an entire ocean of
Doubt
I feel so much
The earth could crack under the weight of my feet
From the pendulum that is my heart
Swinging to defeat
I’m the invisible man
Everyone has another
Explanation for
Unwinding
Unwinding from years
In the pressure cooker
Reclining after
Refining my tastes
To better suit
A simpler life
To forget the word haste
And sharpen my wit
So that the lines of laughter
Can be traced
Shoelaces
Don’t become tangled
Like your shoelace
There is no need for haste
Always bracing ourselves
For the crash at the end of the race
Don’t chase that which runs away
There are no forks in the road
If you choose a different way
Internal scream
Bubbling to the brink
Cracking to the sound
Of my lips creak
Devouring dinner
With a familiar longing
for something more substantial
In retrospect
Realising
I am my own downfall
Surrendering to my own shock
Shattering my reflection
With my internal scream
