"anaesthesia" poems
The distant park
Was a graveyard of dead stars.
Each streetlight a system of worlds,
So many lives between each mote of light,
Indistinguishable in their unique love,
Bespoke hate, and the drama of the modern age.
Drunk laughter behind transparent
Double doors. Another hotel balcony,
Another cloud behind the canopy
Of marijuana eyes
To unsettle me from the crowd.
She points out, when you look closely
You can see the disorder
Amongst all constellations
Of life and love and litter;
Of discarded Coke cans
And temporary highs.
She says this is not a scene
To imbue the ****** of a present mind,
More to baulk at the incompletion
Of one thousand to-do lists;
A million reasons why
You should just stay inside.
She says you can see the human swell
Of ignorance, our city lights
Blotting out the stars
In a black ocean of broken politic
And irretrievable fault lines-
Divisions between us all.
Lives twisted with professional smiles
And eyes lit with stunning indifference.
Still, I have felt charity and warmth
On the doorstep of lunatics and fascists.
I have read the love of life
In faces of those who gave up.
I have recounted countless artists
Who saw beauty
In moments that precisely lacked it.
I have spent too many nights
In anaesthesia,
Fleeing each instance of feeling
And terror; all the tremors
That tell me I am still alive.
Continued to stare at the lights
Long after her voice
And the laughter inside had gone.
Heard waves in the traffic.
A world so large, so expansive,
It can never truly sleep.
Every broken heart,
Every war-torn land,
Every promotion,
Every one-night stand.
I wonder what would happen
If we all stood still.
If we all took one moment
To observe the motion
That unfolds beneath
Our static windowsill.
If we all took one moment
To recover our loss.
The wars that we won,
The feelings, forgot.
The hell we retain;
Our paradise, lost.
Feb 6, 2017
Feb 6, 2017 at 11:07 AM UTC
"shop closed"
**the sign never sat
perfectly on any hook
or nook
or cranny
you are an echo bounced
perfectly in every hook
and nook
and crook**
"considered sold once broken"
**consider it done
once dealt with the devil
his ornamental fairies
consider them whole before
they were bought**
"trespassers will be prosecuted"
**bedsheets spun out of cobwebs
sandcastles spun in of air
floorboards swallow you in
you dreamt of
anchoring yourself
to the ground**
"wine house"
**lustre of turbulent pirouttes
trapped within the walls
of wine glasses and
wine-stained dresses
in cadavers' masquerade**
"emergency only"
**they pushed you in the operating theatre
and cleaned their hands with soap
opera
amputate these phantom limbs
pain has been the only anaesthesia**
"in loving memory of"
he is the protagonist
he is the antagonist
and all stories end
(with)
the former
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 9:36 AM UTC
There is something about being numb that is addicting
It is, sometimes, the only real way to not feel the pain
There is numbing medicine that we have all heard of
Anaesthesia, which means 'loss of sensation'
It is used to induce sleep, which prevents pain and discomfort
We have no problem with people using this to numb
Alcohol is my anaesthesia
It numbs my body, it numbs my mind
It pulls me into another time zone where the hands on the clock move faster
But everything else around you moves slower
All you can do is focus on the next drink coming
Rather than the pain being inflicted on you that made you go out in the first place
We all are addicted to numbing
Some sleep, some get drunk, some get high,
We all cannot deny the sweet flavor of feeling nothing
The needle piercing your skin but only feeling the cold, not the sting
The liquor scratching itself down your throat but loving the burn
Igniting a wild fire in your mouth, going down a slope rubbed with gasoline
Numbness is an obsession
There's something so beautiful in the art of forgetting things
Even if it only be for a few hours
Alcohol dehydrates you, leaving you dizzy with a mind like a static TV
I would rather feel empty from alcohol
Than empty in the bed that we used to sleep in together
I would rather be numb in a bed next to a boy that I do not know
Rather than feeling all the glass I've stepped on walking away from you pressing into my skin while lying in bed alone
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 2:29 PM UTC
Poets, like doctors, know the anatomy of suffering... tearing the paper with rusty carving knives...
We see scarlet scratches and eggplant colored bruises on every square inch of foolscap... we open scars with words... stainless steel scalpels which we never sanitize...
We perform open heart surgery with blunt instruments... We cauterize the wounds with coals of Fire...
We are civil war sawbones, removing the gangrenous leg to save the body... Carrying out our task with whiskey bottle anaesthesia.
So have a care... The Doctor Is In.
SoulSurvivor
(C) 5/30/2016
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 11:43 PM UTC
I know a girl who won't give up.
The strongest woman in the world.
She will smile
Without biting her tongue.
She will laugh
Without sadness on her lips.
She will soar
She will fly
In time---
Every single night.
She pains.
She pains.
She dies,
time
til
time
in every single
drawing breath.
Needlessly.
She cracks.
She wounds.
She breaks.
She scars.
Scarily.
Killing herself
Just to fall asleep...
Before she prays.
Makeup---
She pains.
She pains.
Yet she stands.
She tires.
She tries.
Makeup---
She smiles.
Fractured.
Yet still smiles.
Tearless.
Wearless.
Tireless.
But not painless.
Makeup---
She talks.
She pains.
She smiles.
Makeup---
She walks.
She pains.
She runs.
Makeup---
She's strong,
yet her strength
it needs refilling.
For she stands,
it aches,
yet still she has,
anaesthesia.
Makeup---
She succeeds.
Yet it pains,
walking away.
Makeu---
She goes home
Alone.
It hurts.
It hurts.
Yet she drives.
Make---
Cooks food.
Instant made.
It burns.
It burns.
Yet she eats.
Mak---
Brushes her teeth
Looks at a mirror
Seeing herself,
Smudges.
Blurs.
And yet she still
has the power
to close her eyes.
Ma---
And she lies on her bed.
With all the pain in the world.
She doesn't even
have to wash off
the makeup on her face,
she just cries it off...
M---
Before she prays.
Just to fall asleep...
Killing herself
Scarily.
She scars.
She breaks.
She wounds.
She cracks.
Needlessly.
Drawing breath
in every single
time
til
time
She dies
She pains.
She pains.
Every single night.
In time
She will fly.
She will soar.
Without sadness on her lips.
She will laugh
Without biting her tongue.
She will smile,
The strongest woman in the world.
I know a girl who won't give up.
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 5:01 AM UTC
Last night,
I succumbed to the anaesthesia
Of the breaking dawn.
I dreamt of you beside me,
My fingertips caressing your shoulder blades,
Running up and down your spine,
Playing your vertebrae like an ivory-keyed piano.
I could nearly hear the sound of your breath,
Peaceful and steady,
The nightmares dissolved.
When I awoke
In my sleep-deprived stupor,
I smiled at you,
Though you did not rest beside me.
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 7:10 PM UTC
I lay upon cold steel, blinding lights loom
above my head. I hear my brain
confirm 'minor surgery' and then you
enter the room, scalpel in hand, aimed
at my chest. Not there! my mind screams,
then I feel the burn of ripped flesh;
a repugnant stench fills the room, a familiar smell,
the sickening, salty odor of blood.
Bones and cartilage moan as the scalpel shreds
with swift precision, one target in mind:
a fist-sized beating ***** Extraction.
I raise my head from frosted steel
in time to see your deed: ****** fingers,
clinched into claws, dive into the open cavity,
gouge holes into either side and wrench
the tiny ***** from its cave.
You hold it high above your head, a trophy;
crimson drips down your arm, soaks
a white sleeve like spilt wine on lace; you open
a glass jar, formaldehyde mixes with drops of blood
as the ***** plunges into your solution
Jan 29, 2011
Jan 29, 2011 at 11:36 AM UTC
I have come a long way.
Those endless nights spent clouding the mind
to a comfortable blindness
where I did not have to witness
the war at my own front door.
I have come a long way.
Locked in fear I could not communicate
with my foreign tongue;
learned that good company
was the mere salute of open arms.
Learned to swallow breath
as I once did pills, ***** and cigarettes
to find that patient calm.
Chemicals promise anaesthesia;
only pain is left when supplies are gone.
I have come a long way
from the departure lounge,
staring at heaving grey skies
and contriving a paradise
no one could hope to find.
Walked suicidal through
tourist-lit streets of central Bangkok.
Half-drunk I wondered why
I continued to breathe;
why my heart refused to stop.
I have come a long way
from believing happiness
is a steady state you can attain
through time-lapse images of victories
and failures you forgot.
Fell in love with an older woman
who would sleep beside me
when she could not see her son.
Through nights of *** and amphetamine
she would sway through each melody
even when the meaning was lost.
Taught me how to speak Thai in the moonlight,
left food on the handles of my motorbike
when I was too hungover
to face the day.
I have come a long way.
Travelled 6000 miles to learn
that home means anything
from a constant pleasure
to some happy accident.
That love is not pillow-talk;
it’s the rain on the windshield
that gives shelter from the storm.
That truth is not what you hope to find.
but the words that you meant;
fractions of yourself
you could never leave behind.
I have come a long way.
I have made love in enough hotel rooms
to tell you the ashes of yesterday
can be both the aftermath of a flame
you cannot replace
and the fertile ground
to change your name
and start over again.
I have come a long way.
I am still my worst enemy.
Every day is still a fight;
each moment filled with darkness
when I cannot see the light.
I have come a long way.
Stood brave in the entryway
of every opened door.
Made a toast for all the people I could be;
all of the people I have been before.
Mar 24, 2017
Mar 24, 2017 at 4:35 PM UTC
Let’s talk about my knuckles,
and how scarred they are;
how the callouses seep
into flesh, become part of me,
rubbing circles underneath the hood
of my uvula.
So let’s talk about my knuckles,
and how they’re only the starting point
for throwing up apples,
golden, red, green,
bitter and sweet,
all of them mine, to be choked
back into me.
So let’s talk about Mary-birds,
and the sacrifices they make
for their children,
and in doing that, let’s talk about *****
and how beautiful the sheen
of afterbirth looks in the toilet bowl,
and how often self-destruction
tastes like sacrifice on the way back up.
So let’s talk about my knuckles,
again, and the visceral scraping
against teeth,
and how much it feels like giving up
to not sit by the toilet
waiting for a sign
that this is somehow enough.
So let’s talk about being good enough,
and how I’ll never feel that way
until my knuckles mingle
with milk-white bone,
and how the rows of pews
are pearlescent,
tainted yellow,
with smoke and bile.
So let’s talk about talons,
and vultures, and everything that happens
after death, and let’s talk about
how one day the sea will swallow us whole,
and let’s talk about the belly of the beast,
and let’s talk about Jonah,
and oh - sorry - the sermon is over,
and the priest is taking confessions,
so let’s not talk
anymore.
Aug 9, 2020
Aug 9, 2020 at 6:52 PM UTC
Hours lost...
But I feel like I've gained
I felt nothing...
No recollection of the world.
No worries.
No thoughts.
No questions.
No demons.
Felt like I was dead but...
I got a morbid sense of peace,
and reassurance.
I felt bliss.
Unshackled, untethered and unbound
in those hours,
I felt one with the disconnection
from my life.
Strange and worrisome...
But I long to be caught in those
lost hours again.
Sep 21, 2017
Sep 21, 2017 at 1:03 AM UTC
Your hips will fall into metal blankness
His hands will brush over them like paint to a canvas
And you will expect a beautiful painting
And even though your mother told you to never hold high expectations
You did anyways
And now you feel the wisdom in her words as this grotesque picture looks you in the face grinning with deceit because you only did this to forget about someone else
He insists that you frame it
Your collarbones will sink like boulders
Lay on the bottom of desolate ocean floors
You will feel like an abandoned ship wreck
Like an empty treasure chest
You have disappointed because you are still in love with someone else
You will ask for a blue print of your body so you can leave it on a train just so you can have something to remind you what it used to look like before he took it from you
And they will call this a mistake
Giving away the one piece of you that should have been saved for someone who didn't just say they loved you
Someone who meant it, the words would hold so much passion it would hit you with a force that not even the strongest anaesthesia could keep you from feeling
But yet you keep trying to find that missing piece of you in other people's bed sheets
You will trust anyone who shows interest because you have not tasted this is so long
Because bad man look like respectable men
Bad men with a smile so wide that they will swallow you and you will convince yourself that you asked him to
Your whole being will begin to ash away
Because you were lit by someone who did not finish what they began
And the truth is, you cannot hand a paintbrush to someone else once a piece of art is started because the finished picture will never be as beautiful as it could have been
So why do you keep passing it around
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 9:56 PM UTC
Two months is too short a time
to recover from the way someone is
scraped out of your heart like
a dull knife in
an almost empty peanut butter jar
but sixty-one days is too long a time
to do nothing but sink in misery
so I'm building
brick by aching brick
and I'm getting back on my feet
bone by throbbing bone
I'm learning not to pick up the pieces
but to wait for new ones
I'm learning not to fill up the void
but to work my way around it
because the healing that time brings
is really only nothing
but anaesthesia, because
the pain will always be there to remind you
that once upon a time,
you loved.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 12:19 PM UTC
Here it is.
Here is the hole in the stitches of your warmest sleeve.
Here is the emptiness of ice.
Here is the sound that only the loneliest make.
There it goes.
There is the sun, drunk on days, whirling.
There is the delirium that comes sultry with fever.
There is the aching overwhelm of blood returning.
That was the anaesthesia.
Here is the morning after.
Jun 27, 2013
Jun 27, 2013 at 2:37 PM UTC
My mind bursts in fear
Upcoming electrifying storm of needles and terrifying tools
... whatever that comes next...
I don't care if it will be fast and simple.
It's MY body, MY pain.
If I must sign for it, it should be my choice!
My cloudy eyes seek only one thing on the death's menu...
General anaesthesia please.
Hospitals... HELL in disguise.
Jun 13, 2016
Jun 13, 2016 at 7:45 PM UTC
i wish that i could nail the stars
to your eyes
burn away your retinas
so you never see the beauty
of another's smile
or the lie in mine.
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 5:30 PM UTC
She swam in her delirium in an unfamiliar semi-darkness
Around her an ocean in slow motion engulfed her dizzy senses
Voices from a faraway space echoed garbled in her straining ears
She flew past all horizons wings spanning across many light years.
The flight was such thrilling she wished it had never ended
But she was slowing down on an emptiness she descended
Seeing and hearing nothing she fell inside senseless gravity
Lay silent in anaesthesia the patient in Bed 223.
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 9:05 AM UTC
you were broken inside:
which was why you decided to play doctor that night.
you wanted to fix yourself.
with a bottle of pills as anaesthesia in one hand,
and a razor blade in another
that night was spent in a strange kind of ecstasy
when blade touches skin and blood trickles
you dissected your own heart,
wanting to understand
how something barely the size of your fist,
could keep you,
devoid of anything, alive
you didn't manage to find the answer that night
and fell asleep, failing to sew yourself back together
and each night you were plagued
by the viruses of pain and self hatred
and you were plunged into turmoil as
your immunity to the apathy of this world decrease
and on some nights,
you turn to that same bottle of pills or even a razor
when it hurts to even breathe because
your heart feels so heavy it's about to fall out of your chest
and on these nights,
you are driven to that rusty razor,
addicted to the strange ecstasy that comes from
blades touching skin, drawing red paint from your canvas of wrists
and on these nights,
you decide for yourself that
nothing could possibly be worth the pain
and your heart will remain forever
as a black rotting piece of flesh
see, even though on that night
all you wanted was to try and fix yourself
you ended up breaking yourself beyond repair
Oct 2, 2013
Oct 2, 2013 at 3:07 AM UTC
Advent at the Dollar Store
The ***** roachy desperation of
the unswept dollar store’s cellophane dreams
At Prices You’ll Love boxes of oilless
popcorn poppers deep-fat fryers massagers
to sweeten generational desperation
behind the counter cigarettes locked up
We Cash Work And Welfare Checks can’t afford
Lives collapsed so we console ourselves with
electric hair-curlers and boxes of chips
singing NFL coffee machines
shiny new bicycles to be stolen
before the end of January or
left out to rust in the February rain
dusty plastic holly shiny CD
players for the administration of
anaesthesia Jumbo Bargain Gift Wrap
for Your Happy Holiday Shopping Pleasure
No Shirt No Shoes No Service No, No, No
Hyphenated Industries of Chicago,
Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei wishes us
a Merry Christmas
Dec 10, 2016
Dec 10, 2016 at 7:34 PM UTC
I know my shattered heart better than you do.
I know that one day, it’ll heal and I’ll be better and maybe then I’ll be fine.
but not tonight, or tomorrow or now.
don’t tell me I’m fine,
because no amount of cookie butter ice cream will fix this.
no amount of super glue will bind the broken pieces of my heart together
no amount of anaesthesia can mask the hurt.
don’t tell me I’m fine,
you’ll break my heart further, and further,
pulverise it ‘till it’s gone
and leave me wondering if the pleasure was worth the pain.
don’t tell me I’m fine,
the bags under my eyes will say otherwise,
the thin line of my smile will betray that,
and the dull sheen of my eyes will tell the lies.
don’t tell me I’m fine,
when all the nights I spent waking and thinking of you still happen,
when I forget the songs I used to love because of you,
when I still dream of you and wake up with tear-soaked pillows.
don’t tell me I’m fine,
because when I see you happy it makes it worthwhile
and it makes me realise what happened to me–
the life went out of me when you went into mine
don’t tell me I’m fine,
I’m more than a used lifeline,
I’m more than a sugarcoated line,
I’m more than the girl you left me behind.
don’t tell me I’m fine,
because I know I’m not.
because I know you’re not.
because I know we’re not.
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 2:44 PM UTC
The rain would be more wet
If it was like my tears
The ocean would be more chaotic
If it was like my soul
Anaesthesia would be more numb
If it was like my heart
camera negatives would be more blurry
If they were like my thoughts
The icebergs would be colder
If they were like my feelings
Torture would be more painful
If it was how I live
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 9:15 PM UTC
I think about you.
In a public suit, tight smile, destitute,
running out of steam in your mid-twenties.
We suffer for you, we do.
We do.
You died twice, you, once as
ruined core, ants scheming, plundered sugar.
The second, a rainbow funeral.
You were early to the party for once,
but as usual, you refused to speak.
Clouds turn pink in January, the second frost
over her cardboard grave, a birth of worms.
I will see more winters than you. You who
found *** in a private joke, the Great Electron
in all of your Buddhist theories
and those endless streams of smoke.
I mourn a kitten. The slowing stream of green tea,
the poison in the air; the malignant children
of consumerism. I do not **** for anaesthesia,
will not be killed for a chance at peace.
You, who comes to mind at each muted note,
each muffled string of potential sound.
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 11:27 AM UTC
You see the clouds and I see much more,if you see the sky then I see a door to go through and explore,to see what's behind the grey lined clouds that you see.
Unfettered and better than that,if you see it cluttered and round then I see a flat open space,the grind of the ground upon which feet would pound and if you hear nothing then I hear the sound of excitement.
Unencumbered by notion of time as if the existence of time had no time,my time is my own time and no time,in no time at all the pendulum swings and I fall
like the grains in the hourglass I pass into the chamber,on a camber I slant,if you pant, I breathe slow,antithesis I know but
anaesthesia to me.
Mar 5, 2014
Mar 5, 2014 at 3:57 AM UTC
Poetry is pain.
I only have words when
I can't take the strain.
In the day to day
when I can't complain,
then I feel nothing
and have nothing to say.
The same ten thoughts on a loop,
the same old shtick-
This is just as effective
as a doctor's anaesthetic,
for numbing the mind.
I dose up till I stop feeling sick.
As much as I hate it,
I'll keep playing the game,
running thoughts over and over
endless cycle in my brain.
I am useless when I'm fine,
tragically boring when I'm sane,
because I only have words
when I'm madly in pain.
Mar 14, 2018
Mar 14, 2018 at 12:24 PM UTC
Dancing music chord
On a Friday night
And sipping classic drugs
An euphoria between the eyes.
Attempted dance missed the legs,
Emptiness and hollow feelings.
The eyes are thin and might be red
Two more sips to do the biddings.
Life is short and no retry,
Anaesthesia to help feel fine
And a reminder for tonight,
That It's a beautiful Friday to be alive.
Sep 25, 2020
Sep 25, 2020 at 4:20 AM UTC