I've been brainwashed. Several somebodies have taken a cerebral antiseptic to the outermost crevices in my head, trying to scrape away my thoughts deemed poisonous. Condemned, pieces on the wrong end of a long finger, almost touching the targeted areas. The finger long and rigid attached to an arm, long and rigid, like that of a cruel king delivering a death sentence.
    Scrubbed me clean, they did. They know I am fond of it, so they went deep, taking extra precaution. Scoured. Sent me off, bid me goodwill with farewell kisses, waving handkerchiefs from modest doorways and lattice windows, farewell. Be careful out there, remember all we've taught you from the kindness in our hearts and the space in our pockets, our hungry bank accounts.
    Play along, play nice. Let's sit and try to write poetry when it feels like we forgot what it was. Smoke more cigarettes than usual because they're lights and it's the same. Walk to town, around town, back to the second floor to your strange home. Forget how to measure the passing of time without using hours and days. Nothing catches my attention when every minute's watched, waiting for the next small thing to happen. Live a life both empty and full. Miss your friends, experience a dull ache in your chest, then clean away that sad feeling with the next small thing you have to do joy-free. You don't have to like it they say. You just have to do it so I'm told. Just do what you're told. Don't think about how long it's been since you felt alive. Don't think about why you don't feel alive.
    Just do what you're told. There'll be time for being young when you're old and comfortable, when everything's set in place for you to live without financial difficulty or crushing loneliness carefully ignored. There are several minds I miss. There are people who remind me to feel alive, remind me that I want to, remind me of the hunger carefully ignored but all pervading, present as a dull ache. Remind me what I enjoy, remind me what it feels like to want something. Rekindle the cold ashes that had once been ablaze with glorious thoughts and words to strike dumb. Remind me how it feels to be powerful.
    A life of endless toil, tireless subordination, unbefitting of kings among men, we who see what others cannot, we who endure the suffering of madness because poetry is the fruit of our sacrifice, the music constantly in our heads. We for whom simply being alive has never been enough. We for whom the thought of ending a poem after it's begun feels like admitting a friend's passing.
    We who don't know how to stop.
    We who will never want to.