This was written for a class (write an "insanity poem" like Mayakowsky's "Cloud in Trousers"), but I found it very therapeutic. I was a different person at that point; I'm much happier now, which is probably why my poems now are shorter and less dark or not dark at all... Still, at points it's the best poem I've written, so...cheers.
The embouchures of our eyes speak in accents of invention,
and loneliness dribbles down our chins
like blood bubbling at the lips of a dying man.
When we slept,
it was under the vision of joy’s silhouette standing in the doorway
and waltzing to the song of the stars;
when we woke,
we woke to find our virgin dreams debauched:
The carnality of reality
is never satisfied.
It sips at our memories,
savors the fragrance of our faults and the aroma of our dreams
until its craving can no longer be contained;
its lust rips free and destroys us.
Somewhere in the depths of my heart,
a nebula exploded
and spit out a thousand stars
that went skipping across the universe until they were swallowed up in blackness.
I watch smoke trails in the sky
and hide my jealousy behind insidious smiles,
and all the while it chews at my heart,
ripping the seams.
I laugh
and tease
and give every illusion of light
I don’t love you
But inside, the cataclysmic agony builds
and drizzles rain into my open lungs until I drown.
I don’t love you
A dauntless eternity of the raspy tones of alone,
of screaming, and hands at my throat
and bare pale shoulders that are meaningless,
except as pulchritude on a morning beach
where love’s footprints are scrubbed away by rolling breakers
so it seems that love never walked there,
spinning out of control before me
so that it hurts to look into a future white as sun:
Tears burn my eyes into nothingness.
Ink flows from my veins and oozes onto the paper,
Dear God,
please help.
Vapor pours from my ruined eyes,
and the heated after-breath of the fire splinters my fairy tale,
until I know it can never be,
and devours my letter –
Dear God,
please help
never reaches the addressee.
I am alone in this,
alone to wander all the weary walks, the dusty paths of dawn,
the plethora of shimmering deserts resting beneath the shining trees,
and only loneliness and jealousy and heartache are beside me,
silent as discordant shadows.
We walk through the ruins of cathedrals
and pass church cemeteries
where ancient gravestones remember friendship, love, and joy –
which never existed.
The voices in my head
have become more real to me than those to whom they belong.
Golden flowers adorn my hair,
but I have put them there myself,
and they are secured insecurely,
with only whatever self-assurance I possess.
It seems impossible that they will someday be touched,
steadied,
kissed
by another’s fingertips and another’s poetry:
Another,
who is as distant as the western shores of the sea.
I'm gonna leave in the big words...I know they won't make sense to the general populace - and sometimes the way I used them doesn't TECHNICALLY make sense at all, but...it is an insanity poem, after all. And it was very therapeutic to write. Most of those words are on this word list I have - yes, I am that much of a nerd, that I keep a typed page of words I just really, really like.
