"I believe I am, my good sir, a noble beast and nothing more."
The words slip through my scabbed and scarring lips
lips feigning callousness, lips begging for benediction,
praying to be the passado,
beholden to the omniscient things that seem never to sleep
yet are always dreaming a dream
that I seem to be suspended in;
a syncopated nonsense of person,
ludicrous.

"I would not expect you to understand the nature of me."
And it is true;
I brace myself for the eventual
the inevitable
the unavoidable
the necessary and the fixed
misunderstanding
so that when he she it them they those
eyes me from across the table
peering over my coffee cup or my notebook
and says, "No, my dear, that is not it at all,"
I may smile
rather than rip my hair out
at the thought that I am now their "dear".

"I'm hurting."
Yes, I seem to live this life,
this half existence
floating between apathy and terror,
enveloped in some sort of dissonance;
some of the time I live
in this tangible thing--
others I am whisked away
by the very thought of thinking
and, to tell the truth,
I am so very tired.

"I'd be lying if I said I'm not a little bit angry."
A desperate creature I have turned out to be,
an animal grasping at the very straws of nature,
creeping,
moaning and murmuring sorrowful things
to the dark in which I began,
groping for light,
longing for some kind of motivation
that is not
"do or you will die."

"I am very gracefully falling apart."
This thing that is broken inside me
is it in my mind, in my brain, where?
Am I so very foolish to believe
that I was made for something
beautiful, clear, shining,
something with posture?
Yes, a proper fool I am,
but even fools need propriety sometimes.

"I am the bane of human existence."
Yes, but I am so much more as well,
and I have created an anthem:


I am the morning.
I have a feral passion locked away,
safe for my piano, safe for my lovers.
You cannot find me in books,
you cannot photograph what is in me,
you cannot steal it.
I am a mighty thing,
a thing of the sea, a thing of the earth,
a lovely thing.
I am righteous,
a divinity of my own,
a coarse deity of glass and stone
and I will not be ashamed.
The wars of this place rage on and on,
threatening to overwhelm,
bullying those who would refuse to roll over
but I am not afraid;
I shall be here at dawn
when all the world has washed away.