She told me that women like
men with grizzled,
*******
faces, men with scars
men with eyepatches
men with very unkempt beards
Mouths that snarl
when it’s time to smile
Eyes that are like eggs buried in
a nest of wrinkles
Noses that are never straight
And the jaw,
oh the jaw has to be big
square
like a drawer
A man’s face must have a chin
that can take sledgehammers

that’s why the luckiest woman
in the world
was Belle
from The Beauty and The Beast.
That was a real man, The Beast.
although the story is a tragic one
because in the
end he turns
into a charming prince
with smooth face and polished
features.

“What a *******,” she said. “If only
he stayed a beast…”

Meanwhile I think about
myself
the most grizzly feature about
my face is the mad
eyestrain I developed
because of my job, after staring
at monitors in a dark room for
all those years and then coming home
to stare at another monitor.
it is now impossible for me to get
outside and keep my eyes
open like a normal person. I die if I
don’t strain them as hard as I
can. Sunglasses don’t even help.
and there’s also the dark
circles below my eyes
they’re not even purple as I’ve seen
in other people

“They have the texture of the
skin around the *******,” she said,
laughing.

She was right.

She was also right when she pointed
out that if you can’t grow
a beard by the time you’re
twenty you’ll never grow a proper
beard.

“****,” I said. “Guess I’ll never
be a beast.”

“It’s never too late to get your
face ****** up
though,” she said. “You
just need
to hang around
the right people.”

“Such as your dad?” I said.

“Oh, *******,” she said,
dragging the blanket
over her *******.

i always feel so stuck, like there is this strange expectation of me, like i am not the person they are expecting, they are using, that they are searching for. Or perhaps i constantly feel like that towards everything. I belong, and yet i don't. people belong yet they dont.
constantly trying to beat others, yet never knew be friends with them was really the answer. I am not involving myself enough yet i never want to be. I try then act like I never tried, blame others for annoying me yet allow them to.
I use platforms as an escape from people yet show the same people as a way of being accepted straight after. I do things behind people's backs only to tell everything later. i want to be free yet i have no clue what of.i dont know what is trapping me, but i just know it is. im writing things for myself only to tell them to others.
i message people and they finally reply, then only to feel abandoned again. Things come and go, but never here forever or for very long.
i complain of eyestrain yet stare continuously at the screen like some kind of void for the stress and blame inside me.

I am stalled.
Fatigue
enfeebles me,
and I believe
I will lose
the ability
to perceive
and achieve
the full potential
of my inspiration.
  
There is a slight pain
from eyestrain.
Thus, I complain
in such a mundane way
about how my eyeballs
sound like sponges
when I rub them.

The winter is not normal.
A spectral fog fills the horizon
making all dreams of
what lies beyond
seem exotic.
Meanwhile
skeletal trees,
whose leaves
have been reaped
with time’s sharp sickle,
sleep silently
unyielding
to any breezes
just a part of
the season’s
sick cycle
of birth and decay,

My eyes still strain
in a light pain,
but at least the fatigue
did not prevent me
from writing again.

Eyestrain my dull mind
as I wander through the village.
Wandering through memory, listening.

I pause and feel gravity, feeling it
as a loss of control
and for a moment this thrills me
as I lean back
and fall into it; I return home

and fall asleep, to dream
of simple human connection.

I enter a house, brought there by
a friend to make new acquaintances.
The ambience is party-like, lighthearted
but quite excitable. A mash of bootleg pop
pipes out the walls, I recall
elements of Diving Faces by Liquid Child
interspersed with strange rāga leads.
My friend and I relax, lying side-by-side
as if resting. Tentative kiss, and I kiss back
before waking to that

fading sensation. I lay there for a time, hoping
this vivid hypnopompia
would just go on.

I made another stain
On the missing pages
Time to pull them again
Away from the edges
Invisible and vain
Lost words to the ages
Letters call for eyestrain
Redaction assuages

I leave empty spaces
Tell another story
I draw stolen faces
And have them say "sorry"
Tell them we'll go places
But everything's blurry
Nothing else than traces
Left in purgatory

I pull on a corner
And make sentences split
The journal gets thinner
But words won't ever fit
I'll make my world cleaner
Since lines come out of wit
Squeeze tight ***** of paper
And trust the trash with it

Why would anyone give up
Reading a real book
For a machine?
Holding a book,
Feeling its weight;
Feeling the paper of the pages
Between your fingers,
And actually turning pages
One by one.
With a book
The tactile sensation becomes
As much a part of the whole
As the words
And the use of language;
Blending the story and the book
Into a total experience.
All a machine gives you
Are words
And eyestrain.

I did not ask
for my eyes to burn,
to dry up and scratch
as I look at the back
of my eyelids.

I did not miss this
mystery
that sat before
the collapsing curtains,
as pink light poured
through the skin
to my pupil
causing a micro
cosmic dilation,
like a big bang
in my eyeballs
as my hazel
irises rushed away
from the growing
black blank space.

Then when I tried
to pull the lids up
I could hear
the sound of suction
and feel
the bruising ache
of a lifetime of
untreated eyestrain.

How the day hurt.
I have felt worse
but the confusion
came intruding
when I realized
that the clouds
were purple
and those skies
were not ones
my eyes
had ever beheld
before.

Crimson colored
grass like strands
stood tall and
then bent back,
swaying swiftly,
with a harsh clacking
and in their movement
I heard
mother nature laughing.

It was a bitter chuckle,
laced with pain and rage,
followed by the crackle
of lightning becoming
thunder.
White lines split
this strange reality
like cracks
in a broken glass
mirror.

No animals,
no barking dog,
no flying dove,
not even
a single bug.
I’d happily settle
for some human being
but there was no one.

My mouth was dry
and the air was heavy
forcing me
to work harder
than normal to breath.
It was thick with
an acrid saltiness.

I could not find
the right time,
and reason
seemed to
loosen its grip
upon my fatigued mind.

There was a perfume
of rot riding
the air
like a lost surfer,
caught and cracked
then left after that
to feed the fishes
down below.

If I was Alice
I would understand
that this was
the strange land
through the looking glass.

If I was Dorothy
I would make haste
to get home
off this yellow brick road,

but this is not
a fairy tale
that fosters
brighter futures.

This must be hell
or as close as one can get,
and I would like to forget
all of it.

But I cannot seem to recall
anything at all
before I opened my eyes.