My friends know far less than they think they know.
I'm not good at lying - not at all.

"I was working" "I was at a driving lesson" "I was in the SU"

It isn't lying if I believe it.
I think it's the disassociation
That when the cuts that decorate my thighs split open and I find myself in the bathroom for hours trying to cover them up

I really do believe I am somewhere else

Somewhere where perhaps, I'm normal - surrounded by people who love me and we can laugh and laugh and laugh and cry together.

My friends, bless them are both a treasure and a curse.
A curse because they aren't really my friends
only friends of the persona I have constructed

they wouldn't like the real me
she is no fun to be around - more dead than alive

A treasure because they give me a reason to open my mouth each day
Give me a reason to think

When I would much much rather cease to exist

Alienate my body and mind,
commodify my core;
Is my existence
a means to a profit?
The 21st century's commercial *****.

My labor is not mine,
my art is not mine;
Everything I create
liscensed and taken,
another addition to a capitalist's shrine.

I understand the poached animal:
Ripped apart,
skin and teeth hung for all to see,
and then, admired for its beauty.

Who is this girl I see below me who holds this far off stare
She holds no concern for me as I dance through the air

I live in a world of colors far away from pain
I'm not the girl that is constantly trapped inside her own brain

I wander far away in floating fields of cotton
The agony and my blade are long ago forgotten

There is a tugging at my core and I know it's almost time
Her cries pull me back and into her skin I climb.

this face is not Your face
these hands are not Your hands
Your hips are not your hips
so why are They here?

disconnected
ear, knee, toe, elbow
are they Yours?

body and mind
unaligned

where actually are You?

where am I?
not here

yet not completely absent
I'm in this body that is mine
but not

but if not
then who, where, what, how?
how am I
If not in this body of mine?

This isn't happening to me
I'm shackled and I bleed
So to satisfy a greed
Of a comfort need
I plant a seed
Of belief
That my grief
Is beneath

I made this association
With disassociation
For an invocation
Of correlation
For no relation
Just coronation
By the ***** nation
Telling me placation
Is a fine creation

So when my friends make mistakes
I write them off as sad fakes
Ignoring my own bad breaks
Just focusing on the stakes
And what I can take

The pinnacle
Of a clinical
Cynical
Individual
Divisible
By pivotal
Pigeonholes
Is in my scold

Gold grace boldness
Replaced by coldness
To face the soulless
Faceless foe's nest
I aced the code's test
By using a clone blessed
With choosing a tone less
Bruising than a stony desk
Falling on my bony chest
Yet now that I'm alone I confess
My life's become a grown mess

Because now I never know when
Associates are abominable snowmen
So I hide where there are no men
In a computer glow den
Fearing my deserted glen
For in the Serengeti
I don't fear a yeti
But the pain that's steady
I'm feeling already

I try to stick wide
Until a riptide
Grips my
Ship's side
Flipped by
Sins I'm
Pinned by
With no one close enough to help
Not even my disconnected self

My disassociated sloping
Is misappropriated coping
For a misplaced hoping
Of a fire stoking
To cease bloating
So I keep floating
As a blind Boeing
Free fall flowing
Mind not growing
To ease my knowing
Of where I'm going

.
To whom it may concern.
To anyone who remembers me.
I bet you thought I was dead,
hidden in this house of lunacy.

You had me brought here,
so this letter to you I pen.
This place is cold and sterile,
I can't wait to be free again.

Was it for my own safety?
Or was it to safeguard yours?
I cannot recall the problem now,
my mind is stuck on pause.

They fill me up with pills,
keep my head in narcotic haze.
I have a soft and secure room
to smile away the days.

It will be good to see your faces
when they finally let me home.
I wish one of you would write,
or call me on the telephone.

Why do you never come and visit
The Moontouched man so mad?
I'm sorry you saw my melt-down,
sorry it made You feel that bad?

I hope you will read this letter,
the pen and paper I had to borrow.
But the drugs are starting to work,
I'm so drowsy now...
          ... I'll finish this tomorrow...


© Pagan Paul (2017/18)