MANIC

red sun

the red sun baked the hard earth
and the whole world was bathed in blood,
terrible blood,
and it made all of us feel less than human
in a servile, weak, and filthy way,
like small starved animals hurrying about
with ideas of purpose that are all pathetic,
so pathetic,
for we have no purpose, not even to think we do.
the red sun baked the hard earth
and the whole world was bathed in blood,
thick blood,
that made the air feel dry and viscous,
causing every breath to burn,
and please tell me:
does this tell you that our very lives
are not meant to be lived, too?
does it show you that we don't belong here
and that we should not beg for our lives because they are not even meant to be?
the red sun baked the hard earth
and the whole world was bathed in blood,
stale blood,
blood that had been shed many and many years ago
but still stains the earth because the crusty dirt
does not know what it means to be fertile.
we do not either, nor do we parlay
at any attempts of love,
for they would all merely be a play
drug into existence by unskilled actors,
unskilled writers.
we do not love, we latch on.
i have latched on to you,
and it is from your eyes this red sun shines,
beady and cruel and worse for its semblance of warmth and reality of harshness.
the red sun baked the hard earth
and the whole world was bathed in blood,
blood that drives me mad.
it drives me mad because i fear that this stale blood runs through my veins
which must mean that i am no more than a corpse;
it drives me mad that there is no instant of assurance,
no self-held absolute knowledge
that tells me i could not be a corpse
because i am so irrevocably and totally
alive,
but there is not.
i could be a corpse, unknowing to my own stench
of death and rot,
i could be a corpse thinking itself to be living.
the red sun baked the hard earth
and the whole world was bathed in blood,
cruel blood,
and that is why i dug my fingers,
those vessels covered in flesh which betrayed no hint of my life or lack of,
into your eyes from which the
mocking sun shone
and plucked them from your face.
that is why i drove the red sun from the sky
and the scourge from the earth.