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Butch Decatoria Feb 2017
defined as "existing or being everywhere at the same time; constantly encountered."*

_______________­


he craves online hook-ups.

...but this isn't me
or that intrepid,          
torrent trampoline
                   on wireless ether engines
zone on in  .nets & .coms
                   searching fiber-optics for sight
browsing rooms of M4M to fantasize delights
to itch to fix
to sit transfixed as if
subliminally attached
                           umbilically
digitally to a electronic felatio
                                  soundtrack
yet all the while detached
                            lurking
reading pretend profiles  explicit
with ***, sexified,
dreaming up new fetishes
with misspelled texts
                        tandem testimonials as if written
by a Compaq-machine-head
or Microsoftened lust
                        as now we are turning to dust
with iBooks & faraway Dells on our laps
scrolling lists and Adams with "anything goes"
remonstrating our vicious
                           cycle - blank with un/trust

this isn't me...
where is the warmth
       of feelings, emotions,
love??
I am not that talented
          to be in two places at once,
but he has the faces
and genius of multiple personalities
facets
   of sabotage with grace.

he says it isn't him.

my anger has only one trait. two eyes.
velvet
rope-burned
limbs...

and he has too many faces
doppleganger hatreds
where  does  one

begin??

(The rubble or the sin?)

_____________

DOPpLEGANGER­ (2016)--[Rewrite]


he craves online hook-ups.


But this isn't me
nor am I that intrepid        
a torrent trampoline
                   on wireless ether engines
                   cyber silver surfin'
zone on / in  .nets & .coms
                   searching fiber-optics for sight
browsing rooms of M4M / in-fantasized delights

an itch to fix
to sit transfixed
as if
subliminally attached
                           umbilically
digitally digitized digi-man
                            to a electronic felatio soundtrack

yet all the while detached
                            lurking duplicitly
reading pretend profiles  explicitly
for ***, sexified mind
dreaming up new fetishes
with misspelled texts
                        tandem testimonials as if written
                        by a Compaq-machine-head
                        Microsoftened lust
currents electric now as we turn into dust
with iBooks & faraway Dells on our laps
scrolling lists for Adams
status' with "anything goes"
                        remonstrating our vicious cycle
alive & blank with un/trust
gone viral...

this isn't me.

where is the warmth
       of feelings, emotions,
malleable and infallible / love??

I am not as talented
as he
          to be in two places at once,
but he
          has the many faces
and genius of multiple personalities
Cybil
facets
   of sabotage with Mommy Dearest grace.
        Beautiful strangers his acquired
              taste...

he says it was not him
(doing ****)

my rage has only one trait.
two eyes                              (once wide asleep in the lies)
and velvet-rope-burned
wrists
my feet learn to fly
my heart un-breaks
my wings reanimate...


he has too many faces
doppleganger hatred
none to care for or embrace

When did I go blind,
         and leave my many strengths?
Where do I now
again
begin??

(The rubble or the sin?)


Every night adieu
Every day anew
                                        once again...
My Doppelganger holds secret negotiations with my Avatar.
Slicing up the available territory by flipping a coin. Apparently,

I can see a me for myself if I happen to be in Somalia next Monday.
But that’s the Avator talking. Doppelganger is betting on Seattle.

I am eavesdropping, sitting around in my underwear. They
think I am unaware because I can’t see them, but they are
impossible without me.

Goethe, Shelley and John Donne are in the next apartment
huddled over some broken poems each had written on
the mirrors. No mistakes were made. No reflections.

They get to see themselves out of the corner of one eye,
for up to nine seconds which is like a lifetime to remember.

Yet the acrid smell of Neitzsche emanates from dark corners.
Sturm und Drang be ******; Neitzsche is convinced
no one has ever looked like him, but he does suggest
a parallel universe.

Abe Lincoln, a latecomer and unlikely participant, picks up a few pointers.
He knows full well that what he saw was not a reflection. And he rode that train
all the way from Pittsburg. All those windows...

And, yes, KA, the spirit double, the Egyptian Goddess, goes in **** as the
Greek Princess and shows up as Helen to tease Paris of Troy.

How can you not believe that? For Goddess sake, she helped end the Trojan War.

I have a lot of time on my hands. I don’t get out much.
Ava and Dopp came by just to let me know I’m still around.
It isn't me,
he just looks like me.
And even though he looks like me,
He doesn't act like me.

His mind isn't a meadow like mine.
His is a dry, dark and dead forest.
His eyes aren't brown like mine are.
The iris is big and the eyes are dark beige.

His hands are clenched and his teeth are grinding.
His mouth is snarling
His eyes, hollow and blank eyes, stare out from my skull.
It isn't me, it's just my doppleganger
Meagan Moore Jan 2014
The mosquitoes supped histamine limpets into our puckered flesh
dew gilted grass entombed our feet in dappled domes
refracting the overhead fireworks
smears of whirling color
accented by smoke mote ghosts

I forgot to wear my contacts
my near-sightedness
makes you giggle nervously -
a hard full body ****** of a laugh
it arches your spine
pulling our hand-holding into an expansion
only the lining betwixt finger inlets
galvanized our pulse

well, that and your voltaic laugh
its flourishing timbre
resonant
reverberant pyrotechnic
thickly glazing aural canal

lascivious tomes penned themselves
densely
upon neural plane
dendrites imprinting chemical insignia
moment captured in impressionistic blurs
Lex Wippich Dec 2014
Doppleganger, please let me go
release your grip on my poor soul
mother's calling you back home
please let me go.

We're living out a laymans dream
painting a paupers scheme
playing on the poor mans team
please let me go.

Terrible tyrants
taking asylum
inside my mind when
I am not home
Please please let me go.

I grow so tired
of feeeding this fire
if times werent so dire
then sleep I would desire.
Please lease let me go.
Shannon Apr 2014
I missed you today.
With a suddenness, a bereft slap across my skin.
When that familiar hair ahead of me on the sidewalk
turned.
And it wasn't you.
I missed you in the hollow of the moment of the stranger who wasn't you.
And with resounding howl
Like a grieving mother
I missed you.
I remember in the sheets we'd tangle,
I smelled them. I smelled summer air and my perfume
I smelled  your soap and your musk in that minute second on the street.
I stopped and I breathed in deep. Inhale, Inhale.
Before you turned and it was not you.
Like a sailor's wife on the shore
I watched as the stranger who wasn't you turned back down the street
Growing smaller and smaller in the distance.
And a thousand piercing stinging blinding pins of light forced themselves.
They stabbed at me and took my breath.
Took your scent and the bed we lay.
On the street, on the street
as you walked away, the stranger.
Paralyzing me with your nearness only to be someone so very much not you.
I missed you and i stood in the street and gravity gave up its pull to laugh at my foolishness
and my eyes filled with tears to celebrate their perfect deception.
and my bones forgot how to hold on for dear life
and I slid to the ground
to the ground
because
I saw you today on the street. The stranger that wasn't you.
I have learned the art of hiccuping you inside.
Memory, hiccup. There you are now tucked away inside.
Kisses on the soft hairs at the nape. Hiccup that away too.
And all of the hiccups came out in a swallow of your name...
A hundred swallows, truth.
They flew wickedly around my head  gleeful in my faux pas.
And ten hungry vultures came to take the remains of my hope.
Pick away greedily at my anticipation.
Satiated on the last of my blind faith and now they are too fat to fly.
And I am too weak to run.
Because I saw you on the street today,
The stranger that wasn't you. My beloved. My adored.
Such a peculiar street.
I will not pass this way again.
sahn
04/09/2014
this is about losing someone and what happens in that brief moment when you are sure it is them you see on the street.
betterdays Apr 2014
Somewhere
my
doppleganger
sits eating
chinese take out
for one
watching reruns of Friends
alone  
except for
the cat on her lap
and the four more
scattered about her flat.
She sits
thinking
wishing
life was different
How do I know this
because
that would be me
IF
you had found her first
Connor Apr 2015
A firetruck races past the isolate Blue Fox and infinity. Dulcimer clatters fading brickwork on the cross markets and churches where blind men are the imagining heaven. Luminescent Volcanic leaves heated from sunfire beautiful in the Spring choke lanes which are battered by abstract cavern homes. What happened to the Orient Harpsichord Serenity? Where does the Blue Fox go? Incense Markets Sauna with Smoke are busy in Denpasar while I'm here at a North American shopping mall where Ivory Columns cradled in violet fauna do wait sturdy and enchanted in rows.
Here I'm waiting by the leather clay shade bench in silent meditation breathing community whispers and listening clear to water pour from the lionhead fountain. Parrots caw atop a wide gated ceiling facing Empyreus.

There is a fire in America. The Blue Fox is hidden beneath firs and palms bathing in humidity. The Blue Fox is writing prophecies of economic collapse and rampant pointless murders making the newspapers. Ash storms blazing while banana painted trucks row on row attend to Victorian wood panels cooling to onyx powder in too short a time. There is no room for learning when The End Times go too quickly.
I'm listening to Bob Dylan scream instrumental prayer on harmonica rough against my ears. The Blue Fox treads February Beaches a few hundred miles from Australia and whistling the words of flowers in his head. He chews on wheatgrass jangling change in his fur pockets like those cartoons. He is the vision of Bohemia, he is an active star dazzled in this beguiled galaxy, yet in his spine he carries the turmoil doppleganger kept by all and known by none.
The firetrucks are doing all they can to quell the lung-poison vase boiling an apartment dancing inside but it continues to grow in its enraged fury.

There's a fire in America boys and girls, come around and see.
Canoes of memorial gold row through oppression and genocide, the Inuits and First Peoples of ancient years are wondering too where the blue fox went when agony cries the air. Stories of wisdom replaced with stories of war. Balaclavas labyrinthine through  exotic Bazaars thick with music and plants hanging off fishhooks and brass coat hangers while I write and dream of such Valhallas in my shopping mall on a quiet afternoon.
Bill is playing the banjo with faded paint and a single broken string, there he is on Yates! Cowboy hat made of charcoal velvet holding a meager collection of change.  
Stephen Schizophrenia is lying on his back watching aluminum kingdoms hover on by expanding nimbus clouds. He has eleven dollars to his name along with a damaged half torn belt with his initials engraved on the buckle  He taps his feet to Edith Piaf howling "La Vie En Rose" while an Airplane collides with his sacred personal aluminum palace, suddenly he can't block out the repressed memories he's fought decades to hide deep and dark in his bleak jazz enthralled brains.

Maybe we're all supposed to fall apart. Maybe we're designed to hurt and cause hurt. Where is that ****** Blue Fox? He's ebullient, thoughts fragmented in sharp bliss glass cutting him through while he rolls around the sands catching Buddha particles in his paws digging holes on Kuta Beach to his Idyllic land where happiness is forever and therefore false.

The Blue Fox falls in love overwhelming with everybody and every soul. So many souls by the billions every place! Even the tyrants. Even the demons. Even the necrophiliac scoring an OD'd brunette at twenty six from Anaheim who collapsed flatlined by prescriptions on a 3rd floor Complex.
He adores the narcissist who loves everybody as fully as The Blue Fox as long as they are herself. She is the harmonic untainted flytrap unaware of its own venomous nature but jealous of Summer and jealous of those whose names are heralded through generation to generation.
He adores The addict who is hollow of everything but the ****** sizzling under his patchy skin while he sinks from divinity swelling through his heart. He smiles while the remaining light dies inside him, left with only the regret remedies of suicide.
He adores The artist who fled to the big City and became nothing but watered down pigment after the Capitalists tossed him off the nearest skyscraper shouting pretentious metaphors.

The Blue Fox loves them all! He has no concept of the corrupt, or the lazy, or the greedy and needy and crazy and forgotten. They are all equal to him! The Blue Fox is knelt on paisley carpet smooth and spectacular! His regular India ashram, uplifting his body and his mind. The blue fox knows no doubt. Or anxiety, frailty or tears. He has no impulse or desire. The Blue Fox is joy in form and breathing spectrums of color mixing to combinations we cannot perceive.

There is a fire in america. It rages on unstoppable. It engulfs countries thousands of miles and histories away. It swallows the morning, noon and night. It protrudes disease in its wake. It heats up the ozone layer allowing radiation to make us more than cancer the zodiac. It causes our terror. It blots out our ardor. It havocs our heroes. Nothing is clean anymore. There is a fire in America.

And America is the world!  I'm watching out the front doors of this shopping mall where an elderly man trips at the food court escalator and becomes more renowned with every lethal collision down the tiles of freedom. Paramedics arrive shortly after and attend to another scalded by that same fire.
Up and up it goes!
Curiosity got the better part of me as thine swiftly splaying fingers
typed Matthew Scott Harris (yours truly) into the google search bar,
lo and behold, and much to my chagrin and amusement,
others with mine namesake constituted roles in various walks of life carrying out their wonderfully wicked whiles and ways,
sans existence covered the gamut earthen realm
from administration of President Dwight David Eisenhower
the celebrity circuit, where his claim to fame and fortune
as movie Producer (born in Jacksonville, Illinois)
for silver screen cinematic debut enterprise finished regal Dimension far off beaten track pocketing a degree (from University of Illinois)
in Civil Engineering, After practicing as an engineer for several years,
a decision made to open a restaurant in Chicago
with nary a harbinger - After operating popular eatery for more than ten years,a whim directed destiny viz hit time to make movies
arced renown sent same nom de plume doppleganger
quest skyrocketing
analogous to aligning skill sets into stratospheric isobar
which exertion pitched head stone carvers to acquire vital context
where next of kin content with obituary hiz death
unexpectedly Tuesday morning, Feb. 24, 2015 of Loudonville),
tomb epitaph incorporated passion as avid outdoorsman,
who loved fishing, hunting, and canoeing. I aced as supervisor with telecommunication company, Telecom Towers Inc.
yet by some stroke of premature pronouncement,
whence during funeral the coffin lid rise a jar
scaring the s**t out the backsides per mourners,
where demise found sights drawn to undertake
a totally tubular career as graphic artist from Buffalo
(Educated at RPI), who constantly looks for work today, and to mar
row, out of necessity to pay bills, as prodigy with plugging numbers and spitting out calculations
attained plaudits as financial solvency ****, and par
for the course irresistibly tempted forging credentials -
with a self crafted faux pas star
re: expert as a fraudulent Loan OfficerNMLS # 240801 -
but Youngblood’s hired fretful dexterous dude for extra cash tip play *** tar, while police got tips from wagging tail, and unfortunately butter field bursar ruse landed rising star into clinker
sans Cook County Inmate at age 49
CB NUMBER 19043182, when arrest occurred Tuesday,
January 13, 2015 11:53 AM, and released the next day due to first
time misdemeanor plus absent recidivist incarceration possession
of 5000+ grams of Cannabis, which exposure to magical, miracle
and mystical herb set sites to become a professor
Clinician of pharmacology to help fight the so call "drug war".
I don't feel like
any kind of person.
matt nobrains Aug 2011
i'm staring at the computer like i
usually do,
not doing anything to it
just sitting there.
staring at it.
depressed
more that depressed, i'm anxious
and nauseous.
i haven't eaten anything in three or
four days
i haven't slept more than two hours a night
for a whole week
i go to work, my job as a sign holder,
and i read a book
or stare off into space
trying to fight my thoughts, attempting
to remain with my mind in a void.
when i'm not at work
i drink water
and i stare at my computer screen.
well, these staring contests can last hours
hours and hours, all day if i'm lucky.
without a thought.
thoughts destroy,
thoughts are evil.
i do not like thinking.
i don't like thinking because i ******
everything up recently,
i won't bore you with the details,
but i can't shake the feeling that i found
a hole in time-space
i slipped through that hole into another
universe
in which my life is ****
in which my friends don't talk to me
in which going to work is the only time
when i can have peace from myself.
it's all completely backwards.
it's a weird universe, though not
that weird.
everything else is normal.
the only
difference
is my unhappiness. but that's a big
difference.
i'm not all too sure how i got here. one
minute i'm drunk
the next minute i'm in this other
dimension. (i've got this
theory that the small
change
is because the universes were so close to
each other,
so physically close (as far as d.d. is
concerned) in fact
that they pushed into each other for a
split second,
imagine a vinn diagram,
and after that small point on the cube that
is our universe,
they intersected and were exactly the same
but just for an instant,
and when these coiled arms of the 11th
dimension moved apart,
i was pulled back into the wrong dimension.
the other matt from this dimension (the one
i'm currently in,
where my life is ****)
got extradited back into the one
I'M originally from
(the one where my life is awesome)
i don't know.
maybe he wished for that to happen.
he wished 'my life ***** so bad, why
can't i trade places with a me from
a d.d.?
and he got his wish,
the ******* *******.)
it's like a dream, lemme tell you, a
nightmare actually.
y'know how in dreams you have this constant
feeling that
nothing is quite right,
but you push that away and
continue with your business?
it's this tiny inkling that "hmm, could
this be a dream?"
but you ignore it and continue catching
those ducks,
trying to catch those ducks,
you don't know why why these ducks are so
important,
but you've gotta get 'em
and you've gotta put 'em in a basket
problem is they keep hopping out of the
basket
and running away,
SO YOU GOTTA KEEP CATCHING 'EM ****.
anyway,
this dream is kind of like that
but actually its a lot different.
in this dream
i'm living a life that *****
i don't know how i got here
and i've got this dread that follows me
that when i get the chance, i'm not going
to be able to stop myself,
i'm just going to die.
it follows me everywhere,
and i know that as soon
as i let my guard
down
i'm gonna jump in front
of a car while at work.
i'm gonna down both bottles of my pills.
i'm gonna take that knife while
i'm making guacamole
and slash my wrists
and run out into the night
and leap into that creek
and i'm going to **** in water
until i drown
bleeding
there in the creek.
that's not all.
i keep losing time.
i'm falling through the
th dimension at an alarming rate,
this has of course been happening
for a long time,
not just after i slipped through
into another universe.
this has been happening my whole life.
one minute i'm doing something
the next minute i'm doing something else
but i get the sense of the time in between
but i don't know what happened for sure.
the jumps started out huge
and continued shrinking,
like some sort of reverse big-bang
is carrying me along,
i've got whole weeks and months
that i don't remember,
whole years in fact,
that seemed to speed by or have sped by.
time jumps, i don't remember
those times, but i know they happened,
and i've got a sense of it,
but i don't know for sure.
anyway, the jumps have shrunk down.
but now they're more obvious,
now that they're smaller.
so i'll be sitting here staring
at the computer
as usual
and suddenly i'll get the
feeling that i just smoked a cigarette
(this one just happened in fact)
i'll think "man, i wanna go smoke,
wait, didn't i just smoke?"
i know i did
but i don't remember it,
it seems like no time has passed.
i check my pack and, sure enough,
there's a cigarette missing.
i go to get a drink of water,
but then i realize i have a
glass of water in my hand.
"when did i get this? just now? what?"
time jumped forward a couple of seconds.
i'm losing time.
i don't like this.
i miss when time jumped by a lot.
the gaps were so big i
didn't even notice them.
"sorry, i don't remember that."
"did you say that?"
"wait, that happened?"
"where are we?"
"what am i doing here?"
"what do you mean i didn't
come into work on tuesday?"
"what do you mean i've
been missing for three weeks?"
"what do you mean i've been
asleep for 34 hours?"
"how did the food i was cooking burn?
i literally just turned it on!"
this is my life.
this has been my life.
this will be my life.
anyway; i mentioned that other matt.
he's exactly the same as me,
except we switched places.
he gets to live in the
dimension i'm originally from,
and i get to live in his ******
******* dimension
where he ruins everything he touches.
the ******* wished for this
so he could have a better life,
the dimensions pushed in on each other...
you remember
me telling you about that right?
so yeah.
i'm going to find a genie, i'm going
to build a dimension hopper,
i'm going to jump through a black hole,
i'm going to run to switzerland
and cause the
hadron collider to have a meltdown
and
i'm going to ride the shockwave back
to my own dimension
and i'm going to go to that other matt
who'll be laughing, sitting on a couch,
and drinking a beer,
thinking about how great his life is now
and i'm going to walk up to him,
he'll know who i am the instant he sees me,
and i'm going to grab him around
the throat with both of my hands
push my fingers into the part of the throat
right below where the lymph nodes are
and i'm going to choke him.
and he's going to see the rage in my eyes
and he's going to pass out from ox-dep.
i'm going to then carry his limp
body to a bathtub
and i'm going to chain him to the bath tub
and i'm going to start hitting
him with a hammer
first in the feet, he'll wake up after
the first blow,
and then in the shins,
and then in the knee caps
and i'm going to work my way up
i'm going to hit him in that spot
in our knees that
hurts so bad we puke when it gets hit
and i'm going to hit him in that
spot we're both
afraid of getting hit in because
it's so ******* creepy
and then i'm going to pound in his ribs
and he's gonna start puking blood because
of the fracture
and them
I'm going to break his collar bones
with the hammer.
and then i'll sit down on the toilet
and just stare at him.
he'll know not to talk, since we're the
same person,
but if he does i'll hit him in the teeth
with the hammer.
then, i'll just watch as he bleeds to
death.
one living matt
one dying matt
the exact same person except one
of us is a ******* *******
and the other is a regular *******.
i will watch him bleed and choke
and puke and cry
and finally die.
and then i'm going to get a hack saw,
cut him to pieces,
put the pieces in separate trash bags
and i'm going to disperse
them across the country.
or maybe i'll just throw them
in the trash
or burn them
it doesn't matter if someone
finds fragments of him
because we have the exact same DNA and
the exact same finger prints
the exact same tongue prints
the exact same palm prints
the exact same hair follicles
we're the same.
so if he dies, whatever. there's an extra.
and that extra is me.
and i will take his place
and in the other dimension,
the other you's
will not say ****.
as i come back into the room,
sit calmly back down,
grab the beer the other me was drinking
and say "sorry,
i had to take care of that doppleganger."
you will not say ****
the these you's (the ones reading this)
will know what happened when
suddenly
i disappear under
magical or paranormal or
simple
strange
circumstances
and you all will not say ****.
just in case i'll leave a note
and it will say
"sorry, had to step out for a bit.
also: **** all of you"

because so help me god,
i will find him
and i will eat him.
fin.

p.s. i feel a bit better now.
Butch Decatoria Jan 2016
he craves online hook-ups.


But this isn't me
nor am I that intrepid        
a torrent trampoline
                   on wireless ether engines
                   cyber silver surfin'
zone on / in  .nets & .coms
                   searching fiber-optics for sight
browsing rooms of M4M / in-fantasized delights

an itch to fix
to sit transfixed
as if
subliminally attached
                           umbilically
digitally digitized digi-man
                            to a electronic felatio soundtrack

yet all the while detached
                            lurking duplicitly
reading pretend profiles  explicitly
for ***, sexified mind
dreaming up new fetishes
with misspelled texts
                        tandem testimonials as if written
                        by a Compaq-machine-head
                        Microsoftened lust
currents electric now as we turn into dust
with iBooks & faraway Dells on our laps
scrolling lists for Adams
status' with "anything goes"
                        remonstrating our vicious cycle
alive & blank with un/trust
gone viral...

this isn't me.

where is the warmth
       of feelings, emotions,
malleable and infallible / love??

I am not as talented
as he
          to be in two places at once,
but he
          has the many faces
and genius of multiple personalities
Cybil
facets
   of sabotage with Mommy Dearest grace.
        Beautiful strangers his acquired
              taste...

he says it was not him
(doing ****)

my rage has only one trait.
two eyes                              (once wide asleep in the lies)
and velvet-rope-burned
wrists
my feet learn to fly
my heart un-breaks
my wings reanimate...


he has too many faces
doppleganger hatred
none to care for or embrace

When did I go blind,
         and leave my many strengths?
Where do I now
again
begin??

(The rubble or the sin?)


Every night adieu
Every day anew
                                        once again...
Retitled... once UBIQUITOUS
She said I had a double
Staying in room 242
I saw him at the Manchester Hilton
And he looked just like you
He wore the same casual clothing
And carried the same silly smile
I had to pinch myself she said
As it unnerved me for a little while
You must go and find him
See the truth for yourself
Nobody can look so alike
A doppelgänger is bad for your health
So I waited outside the entrance
Nervous wasn't the word
Was it just wild exaggeration
Or did he really look like I'd heard
And sure enough I spotted him
Yes it couldn't be denied
But don't ever meet your doppelgänger
As I had a heart attack and died
A M N May 2012
As summer air swaddles me from
ear to waist, the most benign of all sounds sets off a biological riot in me &nights; like these
take my breath away enough to stir up in me the awarenessthat
I
am not
what they want.

Neither Satan nor Substandard
could beg more than what I've been aching to portray.
Both less than and less than
hold their finely tuned scopes and too-broad knowledge to every detail I present.
Neither more eager to please than the other, I blend
devil's advocacy with indifference, but I still can't make either pair of eyes
lips or
fingertips
meet mine.
Oh & Satan,dearest when you take my hand I melt,
I'm desperate to stitch it toyours. But you've no use
for the doppleganger I'd become
to coax approval from the masses.

With that, I crane my neck to see the tower that you are, Substandard. Pleading indecency
and
scoffing at regret, I could almost
mistake your saccharine tone
of voice for the alluring Song of Satan.

I gather up my sins into a bundle and leave them by your side while I plead with fate to condemn my
soul,
elicit a wisp of affection from you,
something for me to hold onto
until winter returns.

What sort of discomfort can coerce a girl to pray for madness just to win inadequacy over?
The X-Rhymes Dec 2022
is it cause and effect
when you pause and reflect
through a bus window driven at night
same view in reverse
or a new universe
with a face looking back that's not right

someone faking a smile
maybe ******* down bile
with a profile of rake thin grey cheeks
once enhanced with laugh lines
circumstance redefined
in a matter of just a few weeks

lights aglow on high streets
put on show the crows feet
that don't go with a face that's within
and etched in like stretch marks
they're a sketch of the darks
from a smile that's been spread far too thin

and defined by it's anger
this malign doppelganger
has no warmth in its eye, only cold
where the dread's run amok
and has sped up the clock
left a handsome face premature old

and it leers out of space
with a queer kind of face
that might once have been eager to please
looking weathered and strained
from endeavours that maimed
through the life it spent down on it's knees

in the glare of the ights
it stares back for a fight
and the raindrops leave pock mark and scars
like a comic *******
or a cosmic inversion
or perhaps that’s the person you are?
Onoma Apr 2020
purple doppleganger

alleviating the mists of

form, arising from the

haunt of a perfect touch.

perspiring with the feeling of

being looked at.

a room effecting the dominos

of walls.

this poem was inspired by

the cover a childhood book.
Emily Miller Oct 2017
“Go to the doctor, sit in a dim room, take a pill,
Take a test,
Map your progress on a chart-
Get better.”
“What did Dr. Doctor say?”
“How much longer will it take?”
“When will you
Get better?”
Write in a journal,
Make sure that you record
Every day
Until you
get better.
Because we care about you,
We love you,
And we just want you to
“Get better”.
But what is better?
What if I’m the best?
What if this is as
Better
As it gets?
I don’t want to spend this life
In waiting rooms
Waking up to alarms
“Take 2 @ 7 am”,
Why do I have to live this way?
No one told me this before,
When I made up my face with a smile,
And cowered in the closet,
While my doppleganger danced and performed,
And if that’s what you call better,
Hiding
Or residing
In a haze of medication,
Doped up,
Sobered down,
Nothing to hang onto,
I don’t need to lock the doors three times,
Because I don’t care if they’re locked at all.
Is this it?
Is this
Better,
Is this what they’ve been asking for?
Tell me,
Friends,
Loved ones,
Professionals,
Is that what I must do to
Get better?
Hide?
Live in an underwater world,
Where everything is slow,
And the music is muted,
And you can’t feel down,
Because you can’t feel anything at all?
Is that how I can do it?
Is that how I can
Get better?
Bill Johnston Jun 2019
I come home and you
haunt her chair.
Gone on to forever,
are you her phantom?
Perhaps you are a live
parallel to my loss.
You fade in and out
like a t.v. ghost.
Doppleganger, why do
you visit me?
Is it another world
where I am the phanton?
Do I haunt my analogue's
chair?
Have I gone on forever
for you?
Do you feel a live
parallel to your loss?
Perhaps we will intersect,
and the haunting may end.,
countless decades graduating
contemptible *** laude
hence same time frame every
August since...the stone
temple pilot age, this beastie
boy flashes back to yahoos
whose rawhide (mine) they
miraculously never whipped!

Uneasy panic stricken mindset
ensued mere weeks prior when
mum calls "time to wait for bus,"
despite miserable, horrible, and
execrable experience boarding
trademark yellow beast, when
driver opens maw generating
"whoosh" quickly scanning

parallel rows of cushioned seats
counting blessing after espying
pitch perfect place to plop posterior
farthest distance but tween one nerd
i.e. yours truly, garden variety long
haired pencil neck geek and posse of
unruly purple people eaters, analogous
to doppleganger Barney's (the playful

dinosaur kids love), nonetheless able,
ready and willing to shoot cruel, galling,
leering, quizzing...painful piercing skin
hardened killing stares accompanied with
smoke issuing nostrils awaiting golden
opportunity to kick me bony *** keister
while I frantically scurried, hightailed bat
of hell exitted out hydraulic operated door,

oft times mostly quick enough to hurriedly  
scamper among madding crowd of students
eagerly (ha) awaiting to enter academia's gruff
feet teed hallowed bricked walls, one puny
pubescent hiding these lovely bones out of
harm's way, meanwhile my heart did beat mile
a minute, profuse sweat drenched (even during
dead of winter), and pulse went thru stratosphere,

which reprieve lasted until deafening bell broad
cast courtesy intercom indicated all liz fair in love
and war (that sacred metaphorical loving battleground
being trapped inside storied halls of learning thank ye
skool of hard knocks, doing level best to sidle in close
proximity to baddest, biggest, boldest incredible hulk
hoping to stave off inevitable, yet unbeknownst to this
then scrappy runt, said goliath brute (I spontaneously

cozied up), alongside main ringleader regarding rebel
rousers, thus unwittingly, nicely, handily delivering
sought after prey perfectly into predator's clutches
realizing to late (ex post facto), a self touted pièce
de résistance did nothing to thwart salvation, ah joy
fully recalling fond memories contributing to electric
kool aid positive battery acid test learning experiences
at Methacton ideally trained for guerilla warfare.

— The End —