Don't compliment me,
I might start thinking I'm worth something.

wRiting
           hElps
                      Lighten
      thE
         loAd,
wordS
                    Escape

The first comment
I received
a "*******"
with a smiley face
I laughed off
wouldn't you?
Kind of crazy
kind of creepy
put it away as some one
we all know.

The second comment
came
with the usual language refrain
I was a "hack"
my words were "dreck".
The disparaging words about
my dead mother
gave me pause to reflect.

The third comment and more
began to recall
information of past
faux pas
secret affairs
one or two personal pecadillos
never mentioned beyond
the
dialogues in my mind.
Embarrassing I know.

I, of course,
went to the home page
to see
if it was someone
known to me.

No identifying data
but a picture I remembered vaguely
from a past I didn't know.

The trolling continued
relentless I would say
pulled the plug
put up a block
but
wouldn't you know

The comments continued
to come into my dreams
brutal criticism
of
every move I made
the day finally arrived
when I realized

Alter personalities were shedding off of me
like
psychological psoriasis
They were
hitting the ground running
I was
finding poems
I didn't remember writing
clothes I never bought
People kept hugging me
I had never met before
they
knew me far to well
called me many names
none of which were mine.

The silence of my nights were broken
when I found myself
in my car on Highway 101
returning from where I did not know
with a smile on my face
illegal drugs in my pocket.

How did I get here?
How did we get there?
Where are we now?

Another account opened
on Hello Poetry
with an anagram of my name.

I find my days
getting shorter and shorter
it became clear
I had become the dream
The others
had become me.

We've become a
civilization of diseases
we build
monuments
statues
institutions
thinking death won't ever find
us here.

Our minds are scrambled
our bodies are damaged
our food is poisoned
our skies are toxic
our vices
are forces of processes
beyond our
control.

When we are not humbled
by nature's power
we inflict our wounds
upon ourselves in
the names of greed
and self protection
and no one knows
what it really means.

Fearful of the silence
we fill our skies with
endless noise
babbling on in endless
monotones, droning
while traffic stalls
at a hot stand still
idling engines
idling souls
depletion of every last glimpse
of the past.
Jam packed
in the stench
I am lost today
in
this vitriol
as anxiety, death and desperation
from every corner
screams my name.

That's why I came
to these woods
where the illusion of
peace remains
as
wild fires burn
just down the lane
as you know
as you say
its always been this way
when bodies hung
at every cross-roads
hunger, power, ignorance
and strength
all ran
the show.

I'm sick with
every disease I
know.

I float upon these tranquil
blue waters
and
we are reminded of the peace we all
really can know.