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Jan 2021
I have been joking about suicide in conversation lately
as though to hyperbolize despair for comedy;
I think about the front-face of my personage and begin to hate me
the attempt I made was no laughing matter,
where is the karma, belated cancelation by the speech-policing PC society
I'm no good, I might be half crazy, they credit me with trauma, documented history
it sounds like I actually signed a paper for a NDE
the trick to trigger warnings are wasted on me,
you don't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater before you turn off your TV

Sometimes, lately, I wonder if it's a red flag flying from my teeth
like my tongue, freshly squeezed stinging cuts from my gums
anxious laughter, am  I    just    pulling on the leg of my legacy,
by behaving questionably, a poet or a lunar misunderstanding,
eyes wide like two new moons, an hourglass with sand outstanding
talking to myself to be heard by someone else, a prideful soliloquy of lunacy,
ergo the ego bends my silver spoon,
and I'll be digging through these glass walls with it soon
entranced to a tune, dancing like a loon, this window-pain, you don't know,
trust is such a boon and bane,
I swoon for a swain, a drop of admiration is tanks of fuel in motivation
a kind word, risk the sonic pendulum that separates my lane
to a bitter attention getter, doused with dense sweat in winter
get this steam-storm off my brain
condensed intensity contained, I want to explode; restrain
into the chest, deep winds drawn
the humid reflux, insomnia, a long yawn

I think too often of how I'll be remembered
when there's far too much life to live
how or if I settle into any memory is in this awareness, to make not of my concern
for I have kept alive too many I resented and reviled
on a pyre of hatred that I alone fed to burn
the smoke choked my thoughts all the while
to let it go from inferno, to embers, to ashes I had to learn
patience and defiance of a forced perception
that to be nothing is equality,
everything you are seen to be is a corruption
lenses of opinion that obscure purity
oddly, the punchline shares each conception,
and given the destination, why don't more people laugh at the journey?
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields
Written by
Tom Shields  28/M/Texas
(28/M/Texas)   
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