Poems 1

Losing my Mind

It's held together by Elmer's glue: the mindfulness of my life. Straining and compressing forces work over my jenga tower. When it falls it's a sticky, muddy mess. I don't have to pick up the pieces, because they're still together. But they're toppled over and stretched funny, and maybe my tower never stood as tall as it looked.

The sinking fear. Deep, as deep as the ocean's trenches, where I can't ever go, without losing my body. A place I understand far better in my mind than in my experience, but real all the same. The trench of humanity... melting the glue away... and destroying my mind. It's real all the same for Simeon. Why not me?

Doing things I never could have thought. I do it now. What's tomorrow? Following a path of choices, wondering who will tell me to stop. Wondering if I will care to listen.

It's when I'm high.

Deep fear.

What if I wake up, and it's not over. Like depression can cling to the small of my back, sucking away my blood like a parasitic crustacean. Like mania, that makes me think it's a good idea when I'm drunk and high off the natural synthetics in my brain. What if it's older and deeper and more dangerous. What if it's just me.

Me.

That's a concept. The one that is most apparent, but hardest to face. The one I can't stand, but that I can't send away. That I can run from and hide from, but that will always find me; sniveling like a child, angry and sobbing, snot dripping far passed my chin. Looking myself in the mirror, I can't even tell who it is - this man. Who is he? Why can't he love me, and take me as I am?

Please, don't leave again.