Fevers of the Mind

Daily Revelations

Deprived of affection and a sense of belonging
one retires to a sanctuary of isolation.
Arraigned by the acute pain of rejection
the walls become his or her world.
Indicted with selfishness and antisocial behavior
sleep is the best defense and life sentence.
Levied with incessant worries about tomorrow
sense falls to numbness like a baby lulled to sleep.
Yearning for warmth and the need to be heard
one contemplates talking to inanimate objects.
Reprehended for vocalizing one’s outlook
of the world, silence becomes the decorum.
Encapsulated with grief, mobility
is running errands for survival only.
Vilified for one’s depressive state
smiles are just an anti wrinkle cream.
Engrossed with sadness from one’s state
causes palpitation with the slightest change.
Larking with dark thoughts of an early exit
becomes one’s favorite pass-time.
Adjourned from engaging in sweet nothings
estranges one around so many happy faces.
Truncated moments of free expression
becomes the only method of communication.
Incapacitated with anger and denial
one falters to bitterness and dismay.
Obliterated from the lives of close ones
confines one to being minuscule.
Neap tide for once is just a moment of rebellion
against reality’s gravity pulling one down.
Susceptibility to darkness is a daily revelation
only experienced by ones who face mishaps alone.

Author’s Notes:
Genre: Acrostic Couplet spelling “Daily Revelations”.
This piece is centralized around: depression, loneliness, hurt, and emotional demise.

Empty Words

I’ve been drunk all my life
on disappointment’s wine,
A wine I poured in a glass
of empty words,
I fine with smiles empty of words.

I don’t know what’s worse:
drinking from that glass
or drowning the burning
sensation without words.
All I know is that it hurts.

See disappointment comes
in bottles of all sizes
from empty promises
to fill in the blanks
and even life size pranks.

Many times, I receive these bottles
as parting gifts
in baskets of what ifs-
often laced with fibs;
I undo with no thank you
tearing the note: only for you.

I used to drink to forget
But now I do to remember that:
Empty words can’t
hold promises just as smiles
empty words into spaces
I never thought I had.

So yes I graduated
from being a chronic drunkard
to social drinking as I shifted
from disappointment to sadcasm
filtered with realism.

I have my drink with time’s
lemony twist in a clear glass
of empty words empty of words.
There’s nothing worse
than being lied to for a curse.

Author’s Notes:

There’s quite a difference between empty words and smiles empty of words. It’s like the chasm between what’s been said and what’s been left unsaid. Those who care and are deep can realize how strikingly different are shades of pains from these two aspects of life. People are deviant creatures in their lying mechanisms, their resilience, and endeavors to keep up with their lies. I find their efforts fascinating.

Skylark of the Dark

Words trickle down my mind
playing sentiment’s broken chord
Like a child I slide down
its rails, who says I’m too old
to hope for the best to unfold?

Trouble is my staircase
I live for its thrill, what a race?
I hide my face in the shadows
but expose my back to its lashes.
After all, what are clothes for?

Sometimes dreams tumble
down with a thud and dribble
my memories like a pain so cruel
from a candle that’s lost its kindle.
Never mind, that I can handle!

I turn my tears like a pillow
fluffed for a better tomorrow
but there’s no escape from today.
Like a pendulum I continue to sway.
I am a bell that tolls all the way.

My heart is a harp with a crack
made to cut chords with a knack
My days walk me like a plank
straight into a bad prank!
I’m not perfect so cut me some slack!

Now my spine is arched
like a stairway larked
with sorrow and hatred.
I am the skylark of the dark-
with a quill for a bill and blood for ink!

Aloof

Too angry to believe, too distraught to perceive
I fell into depression’s peeve like a sheave
threaded with disbelief with a broken greave
until I tore my sleeve on sorrows that won’t leave.
I banked on time for solace but all it did was cleave
grief from hope for things I can’t forgive or reprieve.

And as the fires swallowed my cries
I opened my eyes to face life’s lies.
I closed my heart and gave up tries for a prize:
to accept failures without whys and be wise
to break ties and move in smaller gyres
to avoid fires and flat tires caused by familiar mires.

We trust those we love like a hand fits a glove
perceive them like a dove, hold them like a trove
but they break us like a foxglove that cuts with love
and hurts that shove us down until we cough
the very blood of that love as waters that buff
purpose’s rough luff away from joy like a bluff. Too cold to find warmth, too aloof to belong
I stand with indifference to face loss with acceptance.
Too broken to be pieced up, too lost to be found
I sit down with aimlessness and wander in endlessness.
Too drunk on despair, too angry to be kind or fair
I talk bold and look old yet refuse to be told who to hold.
Aloof is proof that love and passion can too go in a poof
even for love that’s over the roof, nothing’s bulletproof!

Author’s Notes:
Fear of anchoring, belonging, trusting, and letting go is the result of broken relationships and betrayal. This is a fear that haunts through all one holds dear and wants to endear. It is a chain that remands a heart into seclusion, a mind into isolation, a soul into desolation, and a life into destruction.

Inspired by: Blood Wedding – Lorca 1932
To be silent and consumed by fire is the worst punishment on earth, of those we inflict on ourselves. What use was pride to me, not seeing you, and you alone, lying there night after night? None at all! It served to stoke the flames higher! Because one thinks time is a cure, and the walls will shut things out, and it’s not true, it’s not true. When flames reach the heart, they can’t be quenched!