A city near the sea, a city under the sun
a whole lot of people who gotta have to run
including me,
and I went about my business,
and I kept my nose clean,
and I forgot a bunch of bullshit I cooked up when I was young and mean
that was an old time, an idiotic time
then, I thought I was different.
and I thought I was crazy.
and I thought my God, the world is so fucking insane
what was I gonna do? change the damn thing?
God no.
Just let the world spin and spin along with it,
earn your damn scraps and keep living.
craziness of youth can’t be a fucking blueprint to live.
can it ?
so no.
Wear a shirt, wear a tie, get that fucking job,
a hand job and a blow job
the city gets very lonely at night, and very bright too.
that is strange
there is a fucking TV in the room that keeps streaming songs on MTV.
Nice songs
and hours pass like haze,
and when it is time to put the damn pillow under my head and hate myself and then fucking sleep,
I realize oh my fucking God, what the hell is this ?
the whole structure just perpetuates itself,
spawns copies of itself like some hideous virus.
and then presents itself for me to face it
In all it’s monstrosity, a sleazy amorphous gelatinous yellow larvae of mistakes.
Fuck Fuck Fuck.
A machine of God gone eerily wrong.
Buzz, buzz, buzz.
no, too much noise
can I buy some fucking peace on Amazon?
useless, it’s all so useless
who put this idea in my head that I have to accomplish this and that?
accomplish a good erection, if you please!
I dream. My God, even dreams are so shitty, I wake up.
I can’t even fashion a dream which looks good
ugly like me, all ugly, so ugly
unacceptable, what is this?
My ears itch, gotta see an ENT specialist
ear, nose, throat.
need a new brain too
a clean one, no memories.
No established neural pathways which make me think the way I think,
makes me behave the way I do.
Where am I gonna get that? The mall ?
now, I think about artificial intelligence
an insentient system that has the moves on the existential playground like a sentient one,
a rational thinking learning machine
that machine will be happier than me
oh, and it’s three o’ clock in the night
a small room with walls with a lot of nails driven in them
who the fuck lived here?
what was he trying to do?
I wanna drive a nail in my head.
What am I doing here ?
Now, I think about a fat woman I saw one afternoon
she was there at a fast food joint
and there was another girl with her -
skinny, frail, timid, lanky
and I was eating and the fat woman was eating
and everybody else was either eating or not eating,
or getting the fuck out.
but that girl was just looking,
she looked at me
and I was so afraid to look into her eyes
the fat woman didn’t even care to ask her if she wanted something,
and it was all very very sad
maybe she was a servant or something.
or a neglected sister, who knows?
my skin burns when something like this happens
I get fucking affected,
and there is not a damn thing in the universe I can do to change a single thing
except may be, be fucking polite to everyone who has the future potential to fuck my life in some three dimensional real way
so I can save my skin as long as I can.
what remains invisible doesn't exist. Mostly.
so, what or whatever that girl wanted was lost in the haze of the evening
why am I thinking about this?
I am not gonna paint a picture of her and hang on the dresser either,
it’s a mosquito bite.
I wish it hurt more, I wish I could bleed,
but it’s just an annoying little itchy bump on the flat of the skin
it is maddening that it will disappear
how can nothing leave a scar?
what would I have to do?
tear my head off to feel something? like empathy?
but tearing my own head off will only make me feel for myself which I already do
what can be done?
It’s 4.30 in the morning.
the day hasn't broken
I get up in the darkness and run to the beach
houses, buildings, shops, malls all are closed
humanity is dreaming asleep so it can dream awake the next day
run, run to the salty bowl of water
squishy, gritty, slippery sloppy
it’s so difficult to walk in all this sand.
‘Sand is so sandy,’ a friend said once and we had a laugh
fucking redundancies make us laugh
now, there is nobody
the tourists must have already returned to their inns,
even the weirdos I so often meet there are probably drunk and asleep,
There it is, I should run to the water
let me catch my breath first.
Hfoooooooooooo.
I bend and cup my knees with my hands and look at the sea
the wind is strong, my hair must look awful
the see is growling mad
WHOOSH.
a harsh abrasive sound,
wickedness of enormous power
Slowly. I get my slippers off,
and then I walk towards the water.
I watch as the cool liquid touches my skin, feet at first and then it reaches higher
I bow a little to feel the salty water in my fingers.
how is it possible that I was so afraid of the dark as a child and now I am so afraid of the lights?
there is nothing but blackness to fill the space
Ready to be fed!
Consume me, or you already have ?
further and further into the sea
I can embrace the darkness in my arms now
taste the saltiness on my tongue.
it’s pungent
my feet now leave the ground and waves wash me away like a disposable soda can.
I have to scream and hear it in all its shrillness one last time
what to yell ? Help? That’s so cliche. God no! I can’t think.
think! think ! think!
let it go, there is no time.
I watch as my hands float in the black murky waters
my windpipes choked,
my lungs heavy,
gasping for breathe. More, more.
lies, pretenses, charades.
pettiness, selfishness. loneliness.
catharsis.
YADA, YADA, YADA
oxygen.. oxygen my brain tells me one final time to get my head above the water and inhale oxygen.
Millions of years of evolution of consciousness and what does it do?
just one more breath please.
my head bobs on the surface like a cork
I stop paddling
Nobody around is looking.
Why, even I can’t… see…
Writer’s Note: This poem now has a thematic sibling. Find it here.