They want us marching to the sound of fear,
Footsteps dull, thudding in-time with one another,
Eyes always fixed on the horizon,
Searching for a sun that always lies just too below to see.
We cannot go back;
Nighttime has already fallen
And we march ever forward, chasing sunlight or outrunning darkness.
We are never sure which.
The stars are no longer the pinpricks that show us a glimpse of Heaven
Poking through the blanket of vast, lonely nothingness.
They have mutated into the eyes of our enemies,
And they surround us and outnumber us a million to one.
They want us to move forward, but no matter how far we march,
We are followed by more and more eyes, twinkling and menacing.
Black silhouettes of trees stand against indigo skies,
Swaying so erratically in the wind that we swear they're chasing us.
March faster than the trees, faster than the stars' light can travel.
March faster than the sound of the war drums can reach our panicking ears.
They are here. I can hear the drums.
Can you hear the sound of drums?

Sometimes (most of the time),
The title takes more effort than the poem.
If you're inspired, your pen moves your wrist
Faster, almost, than the brain can think of sentences.
And even when you're not inspired, when you've got writer's block,
You manage to think of a topic and away your talented self goes.
Then there's the title.
Do you want it to be simple or eye-catching
To the point of forcing people's eyes to read more?
Will you use a line from the poem,
Perhaps a word that sums up the general mood?
Or are you like me?
Do you want to think up a word combination
That probably doesn't exist anywhere except your poem?
Are you urging your brain like whipping an already-galloping horse
To think up a word far beyond your vocabulary skills?
I can write a poem in ten minutes,
And spend a week waiting for the perfect title.
Sometimes it never comes, but when it does,
I often love the titles more than its content.

It's like having phantom limbs,
All protruding from random points on your body.
Sometimes it's like having limbs where there should be nothing,
And your brain is telling you that your hand must've taken a wrong turn.
I want to touch parts of me that don't exist
Outside of the empty vacuum of dreams.
I want to drag the scalpel across my own skin
And rip out the heavy weight of the tissue that drags me down.
Most of the time it's something I fixate on multiple times throughout the day.
Sometimes the worst-case scenario takes hold,
And on those days I've got a serrated knife in my hand,
I'm trying to find a reason to put it down.
I almost always put it down, if only out of vanity.
If only for the return of sanity.
So I breathe, I try to gain more air than is possible
Because the heaviest weight tends to be lying on my chest.
I breathe enough to return to passive fixation,
Where it's like an obsession and I'm stalking my own downfall.
I just want to touch the parts of me that don't exist.
I want to feel that they exist.
I need to know that I exist.