I lied about so much and in such a shortspace of
time that I should probably begin

with the   circumstances of my birth.

There were three grainy    home movies in existence

that captured the

unbelievable    incident on camera.

A soft mewling sound was found to be issuing
from the manger
                                                              at the centre
                                                         of a school nativity play.

So that's me, then. The baby-saviour whose sudden

appearance was not recognised as a miracle by the State.

My origins are disputed and there are

some schools of thought       that consider me prop-made-flesh.

Others are rooted in more digestibly Anglican ways of thinking;

degenerates made me,                                    degenerates left me.

god he saved me how about that?

I remember my home phone number
                  from a house we left when I was 5 years old,

but there's sadly a decent chance I can't remember your name.

you finish your drink in a vicious way,
                                          as if you hate it.

You go strains of mad when...
...Ambition becomes Eating Your Own Hunger Pains
With savaged pride you feel that all you need to achieve in life
Can be done faster with gold and good courtship
You croon apologies to your ideas and hope they stay.
They don't stay.

You go strains of mad when...
...Demonic intercession is hailed as miracle
You pay your division of a vast tithe into coffers you never see
and watch with shame and awe at a penetrative truth
working noisily behind curtains.
This polls well.

You go strains of mad when...
...Dust and diamonds are sold as combi-packs,
**** comes in boxes of strict six; for illustrative purposes, if you want four you've got to sell or discard two for your reputation.
There's no loyalty card or price-break on bulk.
I'm flat broke.

You go strains of mad when...
...A nobody sketches you with disarming accuracy
Their medium is a third hand snipe relayed with bitter remove
No more the taut nymphette lounged aground, on the rocks
The naked crystal uniform of your debtless regime, gone.
You're a shirt and name-tag girl now.

You go strains of mad when...
...Pockets burst outside the Church yard sale
The Ministry guilts you into buying all the furniture and music
moving it one piece at a time into your life until
suddenly you have a Church to burn
Just in time for winter.

In its immensurate clarity,* In its elongation of whatever time is left to my uprightness; that thrice divided second before you make the first incision Balloons and collapses upon my space, in my air.

Concussed, winded: I  should dig in to counter the character dissection,
to appeal with all ire against this clinical dismissal and if necessary I will make myself aged and rage grey, a ghost of one last furious effort.

Two weakening supply lines open up from my heart and twist like lovers
throttling one another for the right to carry the thickest blood and tonic
to my left-right-left brain. I see both outcomes as unreal orbs in each palm:

Fought, but foundered, I could go in lunar were-peace towards the rough hewn exit I saw you cut through the nearest physical plane for me.
It has splintered, like young wood does, in a bunch of feather and spike.

But if I just sit down here instead, let you flay me from a distance
and have trial and have done? Then pack my deserved wounds with dirt and paint me justly black. My reeking cowardice, to match your triumph.

It is an unnatural horror to fight you, to choose between prompt defeats or the slow-burn aggregate loss of small and token victories. With less life to live and more to chip away at, I begin to just eke.

There is no shortcut, no revelation in user experience that floors the bad design leaving me wanting. There is no way to win at you.
You are Dependable terror. I just *eke.