Sepia
They seem to follow me,
Everywhere I go – the visions come back
Flexing and fading into my memory,
Trying to crawl back from the locked cage that once was my mind.
But that cage was shattered, and it was only a matter of time until what mattered
Came cascading out –
All my memories,
the shrieking fire,
the masked liar,
the funeral pyre
But then they stop.
And I’m allowed only a quick glimpse into what was because…
They seem to follow me,
Everywhere I go – the colours come back
Flickering and flowing
My sepia-toned vision finally turning vivid but the thought that makes me livid is
Who am I?
The words won’t come, messages from the past seem to lose shape and waste away like
water down a drain.
Memories are like that – they fluctuate and pulsate
but my memories are different because,
they’re bound in rope and pulled tightly closed.
I ask myself why, how and most importantly who?
First one is answered by the doctors, who grudgingly gave help.
A car accident they say, you’re lucky to survive.
But my luckiness doesn’t fit with the gunshot wound to my mind.
I know they’re just trying to be kind
But now that I’m basically blind, I need to make peace with the intertwined coils present in my mind.
Carry on saying what you think I want to hear but that won’t stop me from noticing the whispering from your peers.
Second one is answered by the police,
who come in droves,
beckoned by the bureaucracy of the aristocracy and their monotonous tones.
Deal with her, they say.
For the media and its schizophrenia will turn this into a bloodbath.
Due to the nonchalance of our late response call.
A drunk driver.
They say it purposefully drove into me.
But the purpose itself is unknown – presumably lost with the absentee that is
my memory.
The third and final one is answered by the thing itself, locked up in a prison cell.
Suspicion, what’s that?
It’s obvious you didn’t crash.
Its lips turn to ash as it refuses to answer the questions asked.
They force me to talk to it, the thing that hid my memories
The thing that looks so much like me.
But talk I do, listening to its dreary tune, I find the harrowing truth…
Born from the same womb, we shared the same food -
No longer tall tales, now proven by the power of technological advance.
Twins.
So, what went wrong?
All everything comes down to at the end of the day is the irresistible pull of
cold, hard cash.
The distortion of my mind wakes up to the facts of the situation.
Flames burn through my mind and I realise what I’d done.
The torching of the house shifts its way into my soul and I realise something.
Revenge.
They seem to follow me,
Everywhere I go – the guilt, the regret, the memories
The bleeding-heart flowers outside ached as I was led away in chains.
How, why and who? It all comes together at the end.
And I wish I hadn’t found out the truth because…
Turns out blood is not thicker than water.
