Just as I had settled down,
And all was back on track,
The knot of dark and past regrets,
Came crawling up my back,

Its claws sharp, tearing up my spine,
Pierced and scratched my skin,
It crept on up to the back of my skull,
It paused, then burrowed in,

The air went black and the sky and the sun,
The floor and the people too,
I looked out through new sunken dark eyes,
And I knew what I saw was the truth.

Anyone?

I wake up suddenly,
Eyes watering, repeated tears,
Not yet properly awake,
Haven't felt that way in years.

There's sleep in my eye,
It won't go away,
And blinds me from myself,
Please, just one happy day.

But happy will not do,
It teases with illusion,
My ******* God, what I wouldn't give,
For sorrow without confusion.

My mind raced with thought and possibilities and methods and problems and in the midst of all the voices and questions, I suddenly found myself answering back:

'My mind, your soul,
Thoughts are spilling down my spine,
Give time, give patience,
These ideas, they aren't mine,

Please go to bed,
My engine, core existence,
Before I leave my head,
It rattles with insistence,

The whirlpool of connections,
Conscience sinking in its wake,
I've half a mind to drown you,
You won't give, you only take.'

My chest expands,
Its words coming through seams,
Forcing through, breaking
Holes of an inflated head.

Each page of my consciousness is
Filled with unending sentences,
Hurrying through the paper and
Scrawling over the sides.
A book of emotion, devoid of expression.

The spine of my mind is dying,
Too long has it supported such pain,
Chaos has withered its soul and
Mine follows it closely.

The thick, heavy novel cannot
Handle more chapters, and
Cracks at the next turn.
Words spill out,
Like blood,
Wet and
Cold.

The tonne-heavy door,
Swings open with malice,
My house of his past,
Which I cannot recall.

The creeping stairs,
Some indecisive doors,
I know them
Not, and they recognise me.

Winding walls **** me
Into his room, of
Imitations and antiques,
The centrepiece lost.

I cry for his return,
For his wisdom, his naivety,
But I cannot hear him,
Inside my empty bedroom.

The facts upon my back,
The weight of the Universe,
Give me it all:
I am not strong enough.

Brushing past the day,
Bodies skim along a
Surface of existence,
Isolated, floating,
Like flies above a pond,

Empty clothes,
Lived in by capsules,
Bursting with character,
Devoid of anything but,
Wrens on the edge.

Their feet spin, roll,
Crash along virtual stone,
Material closed around them,
Curtains drawn too early,
Light begging to be freed.

My hours are ending,
My days numbered,
Life pours out,
Of my leaves, dying,
Discoloured from the
Days of an eternal Summer,

Wind bellows and blasts,
As it always has, over
Branches and bark and
Whistles thinly through my
Veins, drenched in their
Own green blood,

I have become the
Season of death, the
Reminder and cue of
A quarter-year of
Dying, without grace
Without hope,

Fellow cowards loom over me,
Blind as they like,
No reminder, not one,
But I have accepted my fate,
Long after theirs has begun.

My body is in pain,
Of great euphoric unrest,
Every breath taking
More life from its
Boiling blood,
Racing down my veins.

The air is now clean,
Relieved of that stench,
The smell of sloth, stagnation.
Let me breathe in the
Life of light and glee,
Ecosystems of ecstasy.

Gravity now plays, pulls
Back on itself, freeing my
Weight, away from my mass,
My heart lifting, sighing,
Sailing into the sky,
Blue as my own blood.

He sits and stares,
To and at nothing,
The resident rose,
Past its prime.

Sleep has become a drug,
Time has lost definition,
Each second becomes
Blurred with each passing hour.

An emptiness echoes inside of him,
Haze hovers before his eyes,
The old man in the young house,
Let him die inside.