My pen feels dead in the water;
It’s got nobody to speak to,
Nobody reads during global slaughter.
I feel like we’re in a temple of evil,
To be sacrificed at an altar.

I don’t want to compete with anyone.
The fragility of the ego -
I find it far too cumbersome.
I don’t want to secure a home loan;
There’s a whole world out there,
Just waiting to be known!
I’ve got beautiful things to be shown,
Skills to hone, places where I want to go;
I wish to soar to the heights where the hawks have flown.

So, I write, and I think, and I dream;
I believe in my ideas, in the thoughts I conceive.
I try to bring my thoughts together,
To create links like a river’s streams.
I do not wish to have to adhere to schedules,
To meet deadlines on the factory floor;
I do not wish to be enslaved to generate revenues.

Freedom is the spontaneity of life,
To walk hand-in-hand with your inner demons,
Like a loving husband and doting wife.
It’s letting passion inflict its distinct fervour,
Letting emotions overload your servers.

I do not wish to be wealthy;
Because of this rat-race,
Our tomorrow looks sickly and unhealthy.
We’re all out here, chasing the next banknote,
Running away from the debt squeezing our throats.
We simply are, there shouldn’t be much more to it.
Everything else is superfluous,
So might as well just lose it.

As soon as you glanced at me askance,
My heart jittered, it stood no chance.
If it were up to my heart,
It would already be on my sleeve;
Although it's been tort apart,
Somehow, it still believes.

Questions swirl about in my mind’s pool;
The waters are sometimes hot, sometimes cool.
The answers always feel just out of reach,
Like life’s got plenty more lessons to teach.

Questions like: ‘Who in the hell am I?’
‘What happens after I die?’
‘Are we ever going to see world peace?
Or will we be lucky if we make it past July?’

No matter how hard I try to think,
It all feels like there’s no how or why,
Like it’s all a case of swim, or sink.
Random, chaotic determinations of fate;
What we make of it is where we can be great.
We have a say in whether our destiny meets us on time,
Or we decide to show up late.

There is no time to waste; I can hardly wait.
I have a curiosity which I can’t sate;
Unsettled and on edge is how I’d describe my mental state.
I don’t really know who I am, anymore;
I’m experiencing emotions I don’t want to explore.

I do know that I live and breathe;
I also know that I grieve and bleed,
That I have this inner drive to succeed.
I know that I care about human freedom;
I know that I’m plagued by more than a few demons.

Got skeletons in my closet,
A baggage trail that goes for miles;
Got no cash to make a deposit,
Yet I’ll never fail to make you smile,
To make you read my words like they were scripture,
Like sacred inheritance from ancient times.

I know I must be here for a reason;
My existence is just, no act of treason,
No malfeasance, no monsoon that’s out of season.
I am a node on the network, a rogue in a fugue state;
I shall oppose the nation state’s wetwork,
And I will make it disintegrate.
Either that, or I shall die trying;
For who am I,
If not a soul that’s done with crying?

I don’t destroy people.
If I did,
It would be evil.
Broken, shattered pieces.
Little would be left;
Like Latin America,
After they met measles.

I could sling these words for a living;
I want to be merciful, forgiving,
But I’m failing, constant sinning.
I try to keep the poison away from my tongue,
But I am surrounded by it,
Another Hamlet, about to become undone.

I want to be evil, sometimes;
A thunderstorm.
A harbinger of troubled times,
A bringer of ominous signs.
Amid these blurred lines,
Among these endlessly steep climbs,
I feel death’s clock as it chimes.

Amid bouts of disappointment and rancour,
Of venomous, virulent anger,
Life feels like an unresolved cliffhanger.
I want to be evil, sometimes;
But I’m not.
My train of thought leads me to think life should be lived,
Not bought.
Evil buys you pleasures,
Pleasures I’ve sought before.
There’s nothing to them,
Let them be gone.

Don’t give me reasons to lay this nuke at your doorstep.
Don’t **** with my inflamed, ******* cerebral cortex.
My mind is now the ocean,
And you are in its vortex.

A wide-eyed kid, aged nineteen;
Bottled rage, a kind unseen.
Then, a sudden light beam burst forth;
Like it was a song of ice and fire,
And the Mad Queen met the ******* of the North.

I was killing myself with drugs and *****;
I still am. But, back then,
I was permanently binging.
I had nothing to lose;
I was a soul running loose,
With no clues about all these blues.
Short-fused and self-abused,
And extremely ******* confused.

But then, she showed up;
I hesitantly slowed down.
I was a mine about to blow up,
Whilst she upturned my frown.
At least, that’s what happened, for a while;
It wasn’t long before vitriol and bile.

We were living wild, all functional survival.
Sharing shelter with a woman who was vile;
A mother twisted and snarled up with hate,
A completely ****** up fate complementing a ****** up life.

Somehow, amid the *****, unwashed dishes,
The stench of alcoholism and all the hitches,
The sting of a mother ignoring a daughter’s wishes,
This was when we were the happiest together.
We had nobody, nothing, except for each other.

Bonding over an enemy in common;
Us against the world, baby.
I felt like an angel had been summoned;
I thought I’d won the golden ticket,
Until I realised the paper was laced with a tracer of poison,
And we were getting sickened.

But, during that first year, we were alright;
Hell was around us, but not inside us.
Walking through fire, but not set alight.
We held on; for each other, we went soft,
Like I was Indiana Jones, and you were Lara Croft.

We struggled, we survived, although we never thrived.
We lost everyone around us; remember how I cried?
Our friends, gone with the wind,
They dropped us, or we dropped them,
Like a benefit one rescinds.

We clawed our way out of that black hole,
Said goodbye to the drunk skunk on the couch,
A merry day to get away from that blackened soul.
We had no plans, no real goals;
We were just running away,
And starting anew on our own.

Filled with hope, so open to the world;
So naïve, believing we’d be able to cope.
We’d give it a whirl, we said, holding one another’s hand.
We were lost, like wayward, wind-strewn grains of sand.
But, somehow, we slept fondly in each other’s arms,
Disarmed wholly by each other’s charms.
I loved you, and never wished you any harm.
I gave you all I had and all I knew;
I wish it was enough to get us through.

“Maybe, if you slipped and fell here...”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”
I walked on, one foot, then the other;
I killed the voice, left it smothered.

“You can get back up as much as you want.
I will come back, with a readied assault.”
“Get out of my head, you ******* psychopath.”
I left the spot I liked, off the beaten path.

As I walked, the dialogue quietened;
Guard down, senses still alert and heightened.
This calm scene is too serene,
And that’s got me frightened.
Permanently damaged, like a collapsed cliff side.
Crumbling down, dead on the inside.

“Aha, I’ve got you now, you weakling of a specimen.
I am your lord now, and misery’s your regimen.”
“I. SAID. I. WON’T. HEAR. IT.”
**** me, this is it, I can’t bear it;
I’m trying to run but my legs are giving out,
I’m trying to scream and shout but there’s no air,
Lungs are burning, blood’s getting sapped,
Can’t do anything, I’m completely trapped.

The only one who’s always there;
The voice from the void speaks viciously,
It whispers that I’m beyond repair.
Oh mother, where have I gone so wrong?
Oh father, why couldn’t I be strong?
Oh brother, why’d we never talk?
Like I was cheese, and he was chalk.

“Nobody will ever read this.
You can put your pen away.”
“Maybe they won’t read it;
But I’ll be ****** if I don’t write it.”
When you find this poem,
Or read it, or hear it from me,
Know that I died a dyed-in-the-wool anarchist,
Know that I died wanting to be free.

I clung to my past,
Glimpsed awkwardly towards the future.
I looked at the present,
Stitched together by sutures.
I can see why a few of us are scared;
Many more than a few.
Hoping to weather the apocalypse,
And watch it with a view.

“I’m done. Last straw, that’s it.
I don’t even want to wake up tomorrow.
You ******* ruined me.”
“No. I just point out the sorrow.
Nobody gives a **** about you;
Stop waiting for something to come through.
It won’t”.
“Not with you in charge, you sick ****.”

I ran out of kind-hearted dialogue a long time ago -
When I speak to myself,
I feel like there’s nothing good for me to find or show.
It’s just the voice from the void,
A conversation I wish I could avoid.

“Take me away.
I don’t want to see another day.
I’m done. **** me.”
“No, you must do it yourself.
Grab the knife, take your life.
Do it swiftly and you’ll die quickly,
If you do it right.”

My life, my labour, my lineage;
My time - a favour, a privilege.
My very existence, up for sale;
Watch, as democracy gets impaled.

Sold off, bought by the highest bidder;
Out in the cold, caught in a blizzard.
Meanwhile, loyalties are on sale,
Lives are sabotaged, set up to fail.

Born, reared and raised inhaling dust,
Told to vote, to do so’s a must.
Led to the edge by the undead,
Fueled by secrets best left unsaid.
Sworn in, cheered on, values betrayed,
Victors portrayed, losers dismayed,
Our disillusionment displayed;
We’re in deep ****, be ready to wade.

There’s no lust, no zest for life;
There’s no trust, when there is strife.
I see strife aplenty enough;
I see many are acting tough.
Hardened hearts that have come apart,
Forced to live like this, playing a part.

Sold! The entire, impoverished lot;
Sold to the men of the black hand,
The string-pullers, crafting the whole plot.
The world is being auctioned off,
And you are the merchandise,
You are fuel for the enterprise.

You might not believe what I’ve just conceived;
Mark me as read, a fake ‘message received’.
You might look away, maybe take a day off;
I won’t, I can’t, I mustn’t.
There’s no time for going soft.