A Failed Attempt at Baptism

Before my mattress devours me and I am swept below
This feeling clouds the air
The stains have turned into a web so thick
That if I try to find the origin
It only rouses rats in my head
And they’re always starving
So I lie to myself and think, if I could just find the beginning

When I was hairless and dumb
I would lie in the breeze of the hot fan
Wet from sweat and smelling like *****
Lost in some world that I chose
Oblivious and blissful

I wish I could be that simple
But it hasn’t been since I woke
And it gets harder each time,
Standing with eyes strapped open and screaming
God set my mom’s hair on fire, and blood suckers
Driving up and down the road to check if I’m still home

It makes me wish I could be there now
I close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t come to me
I open the book, but the words aren’t real

I see married men
Who sit in old arm chairs
Without a word to say
And defeat is written on their faces
For them, all white flags have sailed
And their consolation prize is a television
And vampire children that laugh like imps
I see time unfolding
I see lovers forgotten
I see the way you pull down your coat sleeve
I see elbows rubbing
I see the smoke in the air
I see my father and twenty others
Plunged in to the lake
Trying to make whiteboards clean

We are all making do
With what we have and what we’ve been
I took my shadow to the port
And tried drowning him in the sea
But as far as I walked into the water
It never crept past my knees

I want to die with blood still in me
Putting garlic over my front door
And holding tight to mementos
Of the lives I once lived
Letters from those who once loved me
Resting in my dresser
Boxes flooding the basement
Holding teddy bears and trophies
And my dying dog wheezing on the floor