Apr 2018
Posted this some time ago and pulled it down after a couple hours. I think it's time to leave it. No, I don't write too many love poems....
___
I've often thought of splitting seconds down to nothing
how far it might be possible to walk into a wall
until my atoms slushed into the chalkboard
till the pressure where--
they are no longer fissile
where time stops and everything stands still...
...except for that taxi in the alley, honking
I could tell you what is out there
but who the hell would listen?
Everyone kept asking what I'd seen
Someone, somehow told them something--
of the torrent rushing by me
of the torment of the all-stop
for a soul still fused by heat and light to longing--
--or how would they have known to ask?
When you get out there--
when you are really out there
it's all exactly where you left it standing--
every cell--
burning despair over the fuel of utterly alone
And how can anyone tell you....
I begged,
"I want to feel again!"
He kicked me
“You can feel."
A window standing open in the third floor of night
and I was hanging out it
A taxi in the alley
leaning on the horn
Heard-- my mother screaming out
from somewhere
Saw-- my body beside a car
below in snow
From behind me--
“Who the hell called a cab!”
...and when you're really out there
the windows all have opened onto nothing...
Death having long since-- left the scene.
When you get really out there
it's all--
and nothing
He came to lead me out
I begged
“Define me!
Wrap your loving words around me!
Give me all the reasons we should be!”
He touched my hands my face
"We are"
made sure to catch my eyes--
again assuring
"We are. We are.”
___
I've often thought of splitting seconds down to nothing
how far it might be possible to walk into a wall
until my atoms slushed into the chalkboard
till the pressure where--
they are no longer fissile
where time stops and everything stands still...
...except for that taxi in the alley, honking
I could tell you what is out there
but who the hell would listen?
Everyone kept asking what I'd seen
Someone, somehow told them something--
of the torrent rushing by me
of the torment of the all-stop
for a soul still fused by heat and light to longing--
--or how would they have known to ask?
When you get out there--
when you are really out there
it's all exactly where you left it standing--
every cell--
burning despair over the fuel of utterly alone
And how can anyone tell you....
I begged,
"I want to feel again!"
He kicked me
“You can feel."
A window standing open in the third floor of night
and I was hanging out it
A taxi in the alley
leaning on the horn
Heard-- my mother screaming out
from somewhere
Saw-- my body beside a car
below in snow
From behind me--
“Who the hell called a cab!”
...and when you're really out there
the windows all have opened onto nothing...
Death having long since-- left the scene.
When you get really out there
it's all--
and nothing
He came to lead me out
I begged
“Define me!
Wrap your loving words around me!
Give me all the reasons we should be!”
He touched my hands my face
"We are"
made sure to catch my eyes--
again assuring
"We are. We are.”
The intention of that night was for me to commit suicide, end the agony. Perhaps the truest free-will act of my life was turning from that window. It was not an act of strength or good-- not even desperation-- just response to silent urging-- to turn around. Something snapped. I could see it all, the evil ones waiting like starving vultures and then, the absolute mayhem of their panic as if they were shot around like rubber bands, suddenly aware they were exposed. I fled the house with two different boots and someone eles's coat.
I escaped into a January sunrise of despair. The evil watchers had sent one of their own to accompany me. The same one who had assured me it was hell, the same who would assure me as we walked along that "I'd get used to it." But the morning colors of daybreak over the Merrimack River and the songs of birds were far too beautiful. One thing I was sure of: I was not dead, but had somehow escaped the anteroom of hell, had torn a hole in the continuuum of their diabolical plan. Yes, it is possible by a single decisive act to alter time, to change eternity.
Drug related psychosis (LSD) with thought-process hallucinations and audibles. Lasted 8 or 9 months, during which, I hardly slept for more than ten minutes at a time. It ended as suddenly as it started. Yes, I was in my right mind again. No, I could never hit the reset on my life. Consequences? I knew what would have happened to me if I had gone to a hospital. I'd read The Bell Jar and Ariel-- knew what happened to my Aunt Lil-- Belchertown State Hospital, the shock treatments, the Thorazine with its tardive dyskinesia. "...Our names too close, confused too often...
". https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1911551/lillian/
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2035619/drowning-in-the-shallows/
When it was really bad, there was this one guy, Jay, who could talk me down. He was like an angel.
I escaped into a January sunrise of despair. The evil watchers had sent one of their own to accompany me. The same one who had assured me it was hell, the same who would assure me as we walked along that "I'd get used to it." But the morning colors of daybreak over the Merrimack River and the songs of birds were far too beautiful. One thing I was sure of: I was not dead, but had somehow escaped the anteroom of hell, had torn a hole in the continuuum of their diabolical plan. Yes, it is possible by a single decisive act to alter time, to change eternity.
Drug related psychosis (LSD) with thought-process hallucinations and audibles. Lasted 8 or 9 months, during which, I hardly slept for more than ten minutes at a time. It ended as suddenly as it started. Yes, I was in my right mind again. No, I could never hit the reset on my life. Consequences? I knew what would have happened to me if I had gone to a hospital. I'd read The Bell Jar and Ariel-- knew what happened to my Aunt Lil-- Belchertown State Hospital, the shock treatments, the Thorazine with its tardive dyskinesia. "...Our names too close, confused too often...
". https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1911551/lillian/
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2035619/drowning-in-the-shallows/
When it was really bad, there was this one guy, Jay, who could talk me down. He was like an angel.
