Poetry Collection.

"To Whomever It May Concern."

Content Warning: Blatant Suicidal Elements and Themes.

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To whomever it may concern,
please, do not be afraid!
You may be disarmed and quick to discern
my actions as forlorn, but before you squirm
and condemn my sorry name, I ask that you pause in your tirade.

I understand my condition may be unpleasant—
a rather foreboding sway in the rafters.
I admit with great reluctance that I was always hesitant
to take heed in the suggested suppressants
and face the sound of laughter.

So similar, it was, in my ignorance, bliss,
to have been captured by the wide smiles
that melded my mind to their kind, easy premises.
In hindsight, unnatural as they were, I would be terribly remiss
to neglect their unshakable, curling beguile.

And, oh, blindsided by flattery,
who could have ever blamed that fool
who coated his brain in shiny lacquer
just to serve it on a silver platter?
Is humankind ever so cruel?

Or would you prefer the freak
sitting alone at the table
choking on words he would never speak?
Is he mute, meager, or meek,
or simply wishing he lived in a fable?

Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself.
There is still the subject of the broken neck
and the crushed windpipe there upon the shelf—
dare I say the leading example of health
left to spill out upon the deck.

And you will never be able to say that I had never tried.
I refused until my ribs were on the outside looking in.
Was it not enough? Has hunger ever lied?
And for myself, I wish, I wish I could say that I had cried,
if only to convince myself that I had been.

Though, I wish you would spare me the glare of contempt.
Perhaps I am a little more brittle than I care to admit.
Am I too emotional? It was never without attempt
to stifle sentiment. Am I exempt?
Well, then. I'll bite. What's the hint?

And on the subject of sentiment, I am not sure what I would say
if it were my mother to find me here alone
with my mind led vastly astray.
It is all I can do, with every fiber of my being, to hope beyond hope and to pray beyond prayer
that she would swaddle me in fuzzy blankets and carry me home.

I would sit at the desk by candlelight
and write a letter addressed to her.
Stutter, fumble, shake, I might,
and then thank her for being so kind.
And why, I would not understand, when she would take off my glasses and wipe my tears and kiss my cheek flustered.

Before I leave I would hug her tight
and brew her a warm mug of coffee.
I should offer her mind's respite
beside the crackling firelight
and hold her until sleep would overtake us, drowsy.

Beneath the muddled pine of my goodbye,
I wish beyond the twinkling stars that I could apologize properly.
Heaven knows I say it all too much. And try,
try as I might to tie my boots and stifle my cries,
I can't help but buckle under the weight of me.

Am I too selfish? Am I too meek and mere?
Am I too verbose, or am I too laconic?
And what cruel absurdity of the universe, to indulge in the drear—
to abandon the innocent and to make me fear
if my atoms are composed of symphonious quarks, sardonic.

Can the pragmatic be quixotic—
the phlegmatic, poignant?
Am I only the product of neurotic
ramblings, or rather waxing poetic narcotic?
Must I consume serotonin just to remain a disappointment?

Can I treat dysfunction?
Is it nothing but neural contusion?
And myself, into a tautological stupor I have drunken,
that saccharine fire of spiritual consumption,
drowning, drowning, deep into delusion.

Such brittle bone, it is, such weightless flight
to taste aged dust among the rotting wood
and to hang in the skin left tattered by the vengeful blight.
Tell me, now, would the sight leave you contrite,
or do we simply wish it should?

Considering the notion that I am seen—
such it is, a rather improbable anomaly.
Does that prevent me from preening
myself on my elegy? Hardly, it speaks, of keen
departure. It rambles, pointless, subconsciously.

And I wonder if my fingers are as blue as the ice,
and if my marrow drips wax.
Do I follow the draft? Do I wear spliced
deliverance, or haunted sacrifice?
Is cognition parallax?

And I will ask the kid curled upon the old bed,
when his prayers are unanswered once again,
if he would like a warm place to rest his head?
And I will say to him all of the things that I wish God had said
to me when I begged Him and all of His shooting stars for a friend.

And now comes the anticipated time where I say that it is no concern of mine
of what is to become of this dreadful cadaver.
A horrid display, a selfish crime—
a cry for help, or the end of his time?
Tell me, is cowardice the same as valor?

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(December 13th, 2023.)