I press my face to the glass
And watch the world go by
Stiff fingers leave marks of desolation
Marring the wall with my presence.
It is not my world out there
It is not my life I see.
Not my life I ache to touch,
To taste, to breathe in deeply.
The world outside is vibrant,
Joyful, full of passion.
A merry-go-round of song and fun
Laughter and high spirits.
The ticker tape rain beats
A mocking drum on my window.
No, it is not my world out there.
I don’t belong with them
Those happy, shiny people.
The glass cage surrounds me
Keeps me apart, alone.
The glass cage is my world;
Cold, sterile, joyless.
Lifeless.
I can shout and I can scream
Snarl and gnash and rage
Throw myself against glass walls
Cry at the injustice of it all.
In the end it does no good
There’s no-one here to hear
There’s only me. My four walls.
And the people outside?
Those brightly lambent souls?
They cannot help me
They cannot see, you see?
Can’t look behind the glass
And see the real me
They see what they want to see;
A reflection of me.
A reflection of them.
Outside the box.
Free.
In the very early hours,
as I watch somniferous tendrils
of smoke rise from my cigarette,
I feel the grip of loneliness.
That tangible feeling of its arms
wrapped about me,
like a lover who could not care less,
the reluctant hug of a stranger.
It presses against my body
with an insistent grip
meant to suffocate,
it never wants to let go.
I long for someone to replace it,
peel away its vice like grip,
and hold me tenderly.
Just once.
Just
once.
I saw it on the news today;
they found my body.
I was wondering where I’d left it.
Two days it had been there,
all alone and fly blown.
In its death it served new life,
a multitude of little breaths.
I rather like the irony in that.
Two days is a lifetime for some,
the end of a lifetime for me.
Ignoble in the extreme,
to have all those people
looking at my death mask,
my final gift to the world.
Roll up, roll up; come see the show.
From unknown to newsworthy.
They say that they knew
that I was having problems.
They say that nothing is that bad.
They say a lot now it’s over,
and I find that very sad.
They didn’t say anything
Two days before; didn’t want to offend.
Funny how two days can change everything.
She reflects upon the surface
As the cold wet arms of the lake
Take her in their deadly embrace.
She feels the cold tendrils curl
Around her calves, her thighs, her waist.
The water pales her skin,
It darkens her lips
It shadows her pale serene eyes,
ecstatic in its aqueous grip.
The darkness envelops her,
the currents caress her
as the lake takes her under;
binds her in a fatal matrimony.
A cold, pale and bloated wife,
torn from her former life.
The lake is a jealous lover,
needy and clasping and hungry.
It pulls and it tugs; an insistent caress.
The flow of the undertow
balloons her white dress
as the life finally flows from her eyes
and bubbles rise from her throat
carrying the last of her sighs.
The lake is a jealous lover.
Angst, Love And Other Monsters Of The Mind 