There are several books inside my mind,
one of which is a turning tide.
There are many rooms inside my dreams,
one where I balance on ceiling beams.
There are a couple bookshelves in my head,
one that hangs merely by a thread.

I have instances in my reality,
where I hold my breath cowardly.
I have a voice inside me, disguised,
that says I am a mad man and lies.
I have moments that tear me down,
so I fall and drown.

I have a God who fights my battles,
but still my head spins and rattles.
I've developed a tendency to do my own doing,
and that's why my fears are moving.
They move through the night out of sight.
But in reality, my hope is never losing.

I have ever felt alone.
Marooned on a rock,
Surrounded by dead stock
Absent of mind or independent thought.
Idiocy is idealistic, ignorance bliss,
I envy this in them.
The burden of intellect is straining on the mind and once knowledge is gained escape, hard to find.

Walking thin lines between the mundane and mad,
A life drained of meaning,by the hand of definition.
Cornered by the finality of decisions I never made.
Alone.
Afraid.
Living in a time, after all has been said and all is being said.
After foundations laid and built up
into city states.
Now I’ll get to stand on its grave and watch as what makes us individual fades.
We’ve become slaves to lit pathways and the printed words on the back of meals that say
PUT ME IN THE MICROWAVE!
For one and a half minutes.
Then stir.
Going in circles with my spoon feeling a discontent bafoon because my life comes pre-prepared, easy to serve and consume.
These presumptions leave us no room, our creativity entombed.
But maybe one day when the worlds not so broke it will be exhumed.
I write to them from the world we broke.

She ran on empty
far too long
She kneeled
At the alter of creativity
And began to write

I can't write
I actually physically can't
OK
OK how about, something with flowers
Not like that's been done 1000000000 times
I swear to god anymore similes and I will

punch

my

own

esophagus

This is terrible
OK ummm
Fish tanks?
Fish tanks aren't all that poetic
I can't think of anything
I think I'm dried up
Like an empty...
Fish tank
******
Wait a minute
What if I just write something about
Not knowing what to write
That would be easy
It also explains why this *****
******

When you forget how to do the things you know you love doing
It can feel like the ability that used to come so naturally
Has already soaked into the misshapen stain of nothingness you blame yourself for spilling

It’s contents have already slipped between the floorboards
And escaped from the cracks in your skin before you got a chance to check when they’d be coming back

I haven’t been writing recently
I haven’t been able to
I don’t know why

I don’t know why my right hand can’t find the will to cradle a pen the way it did before
Like my fingers have forgotten their favourite position to make love to lined paper in

A broken down marriage forcing itself to carry on collapsing
Wheels wasting away spoke by spoke with every rotation
Until there is nothing left to support it’s tired turning
Until it falls on it’s side
Disintegrates
And becomes one with the earth it used to roam so proudly

Maybe it’s just rusty
Growing weaker with age
Desperate for an oiling of inspiration
Provoked by the detonation of something bigger than it’s brittle body
Something so furious
so deafening
that the dots that hang on the insides of closed eyes never stop flashing
Even when the world violates fortresses of eyelashes
and pupils learn to dilate on demand

Maybe I’m missing something
Something already there
As plain as the nose on my face
Just north of cupids bow and south of sights for sore eyes

And yet
It still refuses to tell me where
or how to trace the invisibility of a saving grace that mockery comes second nature to

Maybe it’s not meant for me
But then please explain the fragility of such a thing
That threaded itself so delicately into the stitching of my naive and barren soul the first time I made my mouth move
to speak words it only ever spoke in silence

Explain the burning in my belly
Whose smoke rises into my chest with every late night
stage fright
bedroom performance delivered to absent guests whose applause is collected
Kept secret beneath my pillows
Only to emerge in the shapes of dreams
Evaporating with every 6am sunrise that shines through my window

I’ve never been a morning person
Tiredness has turned into a trait rather than a side effect

I find myself falling asleep on buses in the hope that when I wake up I will be somewhere I don’t recognise but always intended to visit
A place littered with billboards advertising what my purpose in life was always meant to be
And a phone number beneath where first come first served gets it for free

Early bird gets the worm
And now my wings only work in the dark
Ever since contracting the corrosive infection that spread all the way to the edges of the veins until it began to bleed but never had the courage to finish the job

Guilt has set so many seeds in my stomach
That a dynasty of doubts has grown it’s own garden
and is using my bones as a trellis
Contradictions can’t capture the cause of a catastrophe
But give the clouds enough time to settle and the dust might tell you why

It’s not that nothing was meant for me
I just don’t think I’m destined for anything
bigger than my body

The one I inhabit daily
On a part-time
rent-free basis

Where autopilot is automatic

We're still waiting for someone else to fix the off switch

Poetry is like a tattoo
Stamped on me from birth.
Like a mysterious voodoo,
It's my charm on this earth.

Poetry is like a tattoo
Engraved on my DNA.
Like the diamonds of Mabutu,
It shines from p.m. to the a.m.

Poetry is like a tattoo
It will never be removed.
Like my love for fufu
Not until I'm disemboweled.

Poetry is like a tattoo
Like the Nile and Egypt,
It encompasses what we do
It's life's soundtrack and script.

Poetry is like a tattoo
It can now be lasered.
But in music, like a crescendo,
It can never be chiseled.

#IvanBrooksPoetry©
31/7/2018