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From poetry anthology "a quill of midnight oil" - parts one through four. I recorded it all in one take, so it's a bit scuffed.
the clock. the clock is ticking. the clock makes a mockery of my wrinkling, disheveled form and i am driven mad by the sound of metal hands turning pushing me forward forward forward.
the fountain drips water - life - essence as rotten and pure as all things must be, and are, and will become. it burns my ears. it screeches my thoughts to a running halt; a rushing oxymoron as i am transposed onto stark white paper jettisoned out from the squeal of ink cartridges. no color feels enough. i am monochrome, monotone, dull, lifeless --- it is a mockery of it, all the same.
i am alone in the house. i am by myself. they could get me. they could take me they could ruin me but i have been ruined, so i fear i should not be afraid. the racing racing screeching whine of a rusty hamster wheel is the only sound that reaches my ears from the cottoning fuzz of my frenzied brain. i am alone. i am by myself. no one to haunt me. no one to listen. none to protect, none to hold. i am but a man at the dining room table storming on keys as if they are the ones who had wronged me but i know better; but, i am not better.
there is no clock. i hear no sound. why did i hear the ticking? where did the ticking come from? why did my ears feel the ticking if nothing is here to tick? what am i doing here, alone, in the panic of a self-imposed 2 AM graveyard shift, with nothing but my most intrusive thoughts for comfort? it's a comfort as effective as a brick to the head for a pillow, but a comfort nonetheless in its painful familiarity.
sometimes i want to cry, knowing that i can prove myself to no one. i could be accused of every wrong in the world and find myself unable to seek counsel, denied the opportunity to self-defend, stripped of all that renders me less-than-whole-but-more-than-empty. it is a pervasive fear, as most of mine are. the kind of dread one cannot escape short of dismantling the system in which they fail to thrive but are at least surviving -- perhaps, it is a kind of learned helplessness.
nothing aches more than the pain of knowing that i will never know if you are out to get me until you are already here. who are you? have you seen these words before? but how, would you have seen them before, when i am writing them on this blank page in this frenzied mania as a farce of self-soothing rocking myself back and forth in the chair as my mind will not quiet my soul will not listen my brain will not still my hands are starting to shake. it's cold i am cold my fingers feel wet with the chill of twilight air i take a breath. i still don't know the answer.
has someone else typed my words, been blessed with this same twisted divine revelation of miserable proportions? when i say i write as a man possessed perhaps there is another prophet such as i who does the same, and we are simply carrying out the same fated phrases.
to know that my words are my own and yet not to fear that what i create is what i must be, and am, and will become to imagine the ticking of that damned clock all the longer as i am pushed towards an uncertain future i did not ask for and may never receive:
who is out to get me, tonight?
in this world there is a price you must pay - the fee of convenience. it is an insidious thing; all-knowing, pervasive; it is what has ruled us for generations and what will rule us for ages to come. but how far will you go, for the fee of convenience? how much will you sacrifice, for the easy way out? at what times are you left with no choice at all, knowing despite all efforts that the easy way out is the only way through?
in this world, we have commodified the concept of ability in and of itself. have we not spared a thought for those lacking? those who are not the same as us, yet the same nonetheless. those who are still human; still deserving even if they cannot afford the toll. to live is enough. to suffer is enough. to be present is enough. to feel is enough. we are all enough. have we not given a chance to those who are in the most desperate of straits? have we not offered a glance to those who are obscured by the gauzelike curtain of this commercialized display? is it too late? are there too many?
for whom does this bell toll? for whom does this toll collect? for what use is a gambler to an empty hall of figureheads, counting coins and dealing in change that dissipates as suddenly as smoke in the wind?
do not pay the toll; do not fear the struggle; do not deny the truth.
to what ends will profit drive us apart, behind empty lines? for how long will the fees we scrounge through our sweat, blood, tears, hardship, and struggle be exchanged for the currencies running a circus of oppression; dead coins dropping in a puppeteer's hands, devalued, as their worth plummets and the toll rises in steep, sharp inflation all the more?
there is another thing, in this world, worth being afraid of. the futility of complacency.
i fear growing stronger; for that i may lose all that i have - all that they have afforded me -- all that i have stowed away like molded breadcrumbs on a sinking ship, in the name of the debtors who have stripped me of worth until i am but a rat chained to the shackles of their standards. a ruler of the ruling class. an ode to senseless pain. i fear growing stronger, knowing that it is their goal.
do not pay the toll; do not be complacent; do not listen without ears or know without knowing. do not deny this truth: you are worth beyond measure.
break their rulers. seize the means of collection and exploitation. do not give in; do not give up - for it is what they are aiming for.
in the glass house of convenience, are we not all hypocrites? do you presume yourself to be free of sin?
the clock. the clock is ticking. the clock makes a mockery of my wrinkling, disheveled form and i am driven mad by the sound of metal hands turning pushing me forward forward forward.
the fountain drips water - life - essence as rotten and pure as all things must be, and are, and will become. it burns my ears. it screeches my thoughts to a running halt; a rushing oxymoron as i am transposed onto stark white paper jettisoned out from the squeal of ink cartridges. no color feels enough. i am monochrome, monotone, dull, lifeless --- it is a mockery of it, all the same.
i am alone in the house. i am by myself. they could get me. they could take me they could ruin me but i have been ruined, so i fear i should not be afraid. the racing racing screeching whine of a rusty hamster wheel is the only sound that reaches my ears from the cottoning fuzz of my frenzied brain. i am alone. i am by myself. no one to haunt me. no one to listen. none to protect, none to hold. i am but a man at the dining room table storming on keys as if they are the ones who had wronged me but i know better; but, i am not better.
there is no clock. i hear no sound. why did i hear the ticking? where did the ticking come from? why did my ears feel the ticking if nothing is here to tick? what am i doing here, alone, in the panic of a self-imposed 2 AM graveyard shift, with nothing but my most intrusive thoughts for comfort? it's a comfort as effective as a brick to the head for a pillow, but a comfort nonetheless in its painful familiarity.
sometimes i want to cry, knowing that i can prove myself to no one. i could be accused of every wrong in the world and find myself unable to seek counsel, denied the opportunity to self-defend, stripped of all that renders me less-than-whole-but-more-than-empty. it is a pervasive fear, as most of mine are. the kind of dread one cannot escape short of dismantling the system in which they fail to thrive but are at least surviving -- perhaps, it is a kind of learned helplessness.
nothing aches more than the pain of knowing that i will never know if you are out to get me until you are already here. who are you? have you seen these words before? but how, would you have seen them before, when i am writing them on this blank page in this frenzied mania as a farce of self-soothing rocking myself back and forth in the chair as my mind will not quiet my soul will not listen my brain will not still my hands are starting to shake. it's cold i am cold my fingers feel wet with the chill of twilight air i take a breath. i still don't know the answer.
has someone else typed my words, been blessed with this same twisted divine revelation of miserable proportions? when i say i write as a man possessed perhaps there is another prophet such as i who does the same, and we are simply carrying out the same fated phrases.
to know that my words are my own and yet not to fear that what i create is what i must be, and am, and will become to imagine the ticking of that damned clock all the longer as i am pushed towards an uncertain future i did not ask for and may never receive:
who is out to get me, tonight?
"nothing to worry about" but i am worrying anyway "nothing to cry about" but i still want to cry "nothing to talk about" but i have so much to say "nothing to do" nothing. nothing. nothing. i feel nothing. "you are nothing" there is nothing. i am numb.
numb to what? numb for what reason? numb yet why, do these words resonate within me, setting passion alight as a feeling ignites - it burns like my skin is catching flame like a scrap of parchment - i watch as i crumble to ash, and the ink of a weathered calligraphy brush becomes molten candle wax the words of scorn tattooed onto my skin coil up from my wretched form choking suffocating me with white plumes of smoke like the feather plume of a maddened quill yet i feel nothing, yet i feel everything, and it is all too much.
every day i feel as if i have run out of things to feel and every day i am proven wrong, proven right, and proven wrong again.
the smudges of ink stained on my skin are turning into scars. what will they think, i wonder, when they turn the leather cover of the novella of my life, and strip me bare to the words that conceptualize the very essence of my form?
the vessel ails, sick beyond treatment, the same haunting chords stuck in my throat with ash and dried ink and candle wax and fetid dust. i am coughing up the words to my own demise, struck frozen with the emotion overflowing the inkwell within me yet somehow numb all the same.
"i am nothing"
the clock. the clock is ticking. the clock makes a mockery of my wrinkling, disheveled form and i am driven mad by the sound of metal hands turning pushing me forward forward forward.
the fountain drips water - life - essence as rotten and pure as all things must be, and are, and will become. it burns my ears. it screeches my thoughts to a running halt; a rushing oxymoron as i am transposed onto stark white paper jettisoned out from the squeal of ink cartridges. no color feels enough. i am monochrome, monotone, dull, lifeless --- it is a mockery of it, all the same.
i am alone in the house. i am by myself. they could get me. they could take me they could ruin me but i have been ruined, so i fear i should not be afraid. the racing racing screeching whine of a rusty hamster wheel is the only sound that reaches my ears from the cottoning fuzz of my frenzied brain. i am alone. i am by myself. no one to haunt me. no one to listen. none to protect, none to hold. i am but a man at the dining room table storming on keys as if they are the ones who had wronged me but i know better; but, i am not better.
there is no clock. i hear no sound. why did i hear the ticking? where did the ticking come from? why did my ears feel the ticking if nothing is here to tick? what am i doing here, alone, in the panic of a self-imposed 2 AM graveyard shift, with nothing but my most intrusive thoughts for comfort? it's a comfort as effective as a brick to the head for a pillow, but a comfort nonetheless in its painful familiarity.
sometimes i want to cry, knowing that i can prove myself to no one. i could be accused of every wrong in the world and find myself unable to seek counsel, denied the opportunity to self-defend, stripped of all that renders me less-than-whole-but-more-than-empty. it is a pervasive fear, as most of mine are. the kind of dread one cannot escape short of dismantling the system in which they fail to thrive but are at least surviving -- perhaps, it is a kind of learned helplessness.
nothing aches more than the pain of knowing that i will never know if you are out to get me until you are already here. who are you? have you seen these words before? but how, would you have seen them before, when i am writing them on this blank page in this frenzied mania as a farce of self-soothing rocking myself back and forth in the chair as my mind will not quiet my soul will not listen my brain will not still my hands are starting to shake. it's cold i am cold my fingers feel wet with the chill of twilight air i take a breath. i still don't know the answer.
has someone else typed my words, been blessed with this same twisted divine revelation of miserable proportions? when i say i write as a man possessed perhaps there is another prophet such as i who does the same, and we are simply carrying out the same fated phrases.
to know that my words are my own and yet not to fear that what i create is what i must be, and am, and will become to imagine the ticking of that damned clock all the longer as i am pushed towards an uncertain future i did not ask for and may never receive:
who is out to get me, tonight?
hey
hey friend
dont kill yourself tonight ok
you have a really pretty smile and i know its not always easy to manage one but itd be a bummer if we never had the chance to see it ever again
youre really important and you matter a lot so stay safe and try and have a nice sleep