Flesh Automaton

I keep seeing

afterimages of the person I could have been

faded and gray

but present

in Fisher-esque lost futures

hantologique.

but I'll always be me

the same sordid creature 

that emerged into consciousness 

some two decades ago.

I can change 

my looks 

clothes

endocrinology

create another me for the others

for the outside 

but only ever for them to enjoy

never for myself

i’m just

a prisoner in this

flesh-bone cage

forced to take in my own

reflection.

In those mocking panes, 

reflective portals - 

some creature of skin and sorrow

transfixed within -

I see another,

when the light brushes my face

just right.

I see one straining to be free

from behind a freshly shaved face.

But what can I do but hope

that one day the other makes its way - 

tears through this facsimile of meat

I’m a real fucking freak to wallow in my own suffering,

fetishizing it, the center of my being.

But how could I leave behind the one thing I can always count on,

my inspiration, my last hope for sensation.

When all else fails, when it all grows numb I know

my pain will be there if I call on it and I know

agony is better than ennui.

So I let myself reminisce,

relive the memories and horror,

and fantasize my own undoing,

cutting myself open and

running my hands through a silky mass of organs,

gripping my own beating heart.

My thoughts a knife I can always keep pushing

It is stagnation that troubles me,

among all of life’s horrors.

Pain, hardship, all answerable 

by acknowledging the time-honored violence

of existence.

But to grow stagnant like a creeping frost

as winter sets in leaving all, living and dead, 

preserved in sheets of white,

like a glass of water left out to sit, soaking up

the ambient funk,

like the last embers of a fire that glow

dimly from the ashes waiting to be swept away

but never really flicker out.

It is stagnation that troubles me

laying in my bed under a dull ceiling

in a temperature that’s too cold and too warm.

Staring blankly up at the dark at night.

Maybe if I stay there and hold tight

maybe if I wait just long enough something will happen

things will change but

The light in the distance, dimmer, dimmer

The future, our future, further, further.

These legs, sinew rotting off the bone,

Can carry me no more - collapsing into the dust.

These arms, joints writhing with maggots,

Fail to grasp at even the stagnant air.

I feel that I've lost - it's over,

But please before you go, carry me away

To beneath a gentle sun to feed the fields and gardens

A lump near my shoulder, it begins to sprout

coiling round my neck,

and leaving snail trails of pus and blood

til its eye unsheathes bloodshot and staring back - 

What do you want

I asked the gamy growth, 

the gnarly mass of flesh.

I’m the imp of the perverse, an avatar of your lunacy-

I invited that demon into my room -

shiny and reflective - and every morning

It watches me squirm and thrash,

Like a worm caught on the pavement

shriveling up in the sun.

It watches me free myself from a thin blanket,

tearing it off like a bandage draped over sallow, rotting flesh.

It watches me watch it -

watching me stare down the strange form it contains.

It mocks me, twisting and contorting the hollow shell,

the writhing flesh before it. 

Happiness ephemeral  The  fragrant dew There in the morning Gone in the afternoon.  Only enjoyed in the moment  Was it ever there at all?

晨之露水

Not long ago the man, who had thought it best to continue his studies at college, lost track of his life and his heart fell to despair. In the black hands of sorrow what remained of his heart was moved to compose a poem regarding his enduring sadness.

Where'd it all go wrong?

Those fleeting times of the past

Gone. Blown out by wind.

Always was my greatest fear

To have no home to flee to