2016 Slam (Full)

I want to write, but the words never come.

All blockish sludge and festered matter--

This makes me less tattered?

Clogging the mind was never my intention,

Yet the words slick out faster if I’m a different person.

The world awaits for this year to cease,

But I long to be filled with hydrangeas and peace

Not broken glass or maggoty feathers.

My insides sludge together

 

“What does this define?”

“I don’t understand this line!”

You don’t understand the song of my soul

“Is this what you really feel, or is this just a role?”

Just empty words--that’s all they are.

Shut down the page, burn the ink away

Allow the pages to return to their proper state--

Nothing.

Why continue; it’s disgusting

It’s not like you’ve listened to hear my song.

 

Why continue writing for so long?

For those down the line unknowingly awaiting my putrid, festering pen?

Good--they will be saved from this festering disease again.

Quarantine yourself from me!

My work means nothing

Not to you, not to me.

Certainly not to me!

It’s not like my pen draws ink from my wrists

Or that sleepless nights are spent with papers clutched within my fist.

Why should it matter

When it’s only an extension of my being, albeit shattered?

Exposing my flesh from behind the wall--

How could I care about it--it burns and is so raw!

Nothing will come of this curse.

It only makes myself feel worse

So why continue?

Shut up! Stop telling people--they’ll convince you to continue!

You don’t have the talent to compete!

 

Why should that matter?

I’m only trying to get better

But you’ll never be an elite.

I can try

Trying isn’t doing

It’s better than rueing, right?

When will ‘good’ be good enough?

Set the bar too high, your expectations too low and now look at your savior--

Right back at the beginning with nothing to show but your own failure.

Go down this path and you will only fail

I know

But what else can I do besides wail?

Nothing

 

These were the cards you were dealt.

Play the best game you can, you whelp--

One you know you’ll win.

But I don’t know anythin’.

Exactly.

Return to the ashes where you belong; abnormal--

Not even your pathetic songs will keep you immortal.

Nothing--

That’s all you’ll ever amount to

You don’t know that--

Yes I do

 

Who knows you better than yourself in this black sea?

You can’t fight this; you know you can’t escape this reality

Yes, I can, with my pen--

Aren’t you listening, you silly wren?

Your pen can’t save you from this;

From me.

Like you said yourself,

It’s all in your head.

 

Those pills aren’t enough to be your bread

Your own family says you’re helpless--

Screaming when you don’t act restless.

What are you trying to argue here?

I just want to be happy

 

AND LIKE I DON’T?

 

That would never happen to you--not to us

You’re out here, not coated in some stupid fairy dust--

Welcome home! You’re in reality!

Please enjoy your stay

You don’t want a happy ending?

Guess again, castaway.

Let me tell you a story, without defending…

 

A lonely cry,

A teary goodbye

Such faded talents rot along savage wire,

Peeling plaster, cracked tile, and a house in retire.

Yet a simple meal is meant as my fee;

How can this agony set me free?

 

Light grew into time,

Yet here we lay--still in the grime.

A fantastical world with color and joy

Lies past this veil; almost destroyed.

 

Songs of springtime fade;

Rusted, in pieces, by the glades.

A tree once grew beside my house,

Fire left its mark, quiet as a mouse,

Greenery has left my life

It seems, out of spite.

 

Still I must peel back this rotted flesh

For the rats will take care of the rest.

They say I don’t make sense,

That my words are merely a vain wish.

 

Supposedly, talent cannot be paid,

But that’s not what the stories say.

Counting stars seems more productive,

If it only weren’t as seductive.

 

All I want is peace of mind.

But, that can never really be mine.

It’s selfish to think myself so important,

But really,

It’s I who am hunted.

 

No one sees and no one cares--

I might as well set off a flare.

Daring, am I, to be so bold?

Kings have prospered from the fruit of my soul!

 

Loneliness has become my only friend

My strangeness, it seems, no one can stand.

 

I tried picking roses from the grave,

They grew inside my lungs, pricking if I ever misbehaved.

Calling a witch to prune them,

She merely said, “Succumb”

“Come in out of the darkness”

She opened her ribs and called herself heartless.

“Nay,” I said.

“If that were true, we’d both be dead”

 

Have we saved each other?

No, we spared one another.

Sometimes I see that witch in fires,

And hear her in the choirs.

I merely look and feel a thorn prick my side.

 

We exist a call away; maybe a sigh.

Yet aren’t we both drifting apart?

Maybe that’s how we’ll see if we both have hearts.

 

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