Month: May 2020

Doubting // To Another Day

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This story is only partly true so you will have to imagine the rest.

The re-teller never existed. To you she might seem real…

Or was it all a test?

No, no, I’m quite sure that the narrative is truer than the actual story

And the voice sounds realistic but also too arrogant.

(Has she ever muttered “sorry”?)

To anyone reading this – please don’t jump to conclusions harshly.

If you say that I’m to blame, I will accept it.

At least, partly.

So enjoy the show and take the orchestra home if you can’t sit through.

Because the drums and the violins might hit some chords

Resonating with you,

Too.

***

My head has been bed bound for a decade and counting.

Nothing grows in a ceaseless fire,

It’s a storm of blips. It’s a form of drowning.

The clouds move unsurely through the stickiest nectar.

I imagine this is what death feels like

Because anxiety is my faithful specter.

My limbs are tranquil while the chest goes full Urie

And the focus is stolen from me,

The emptiness is filled with fury.

What about the jury?

Are they still out and about, ignoring the verdict they are going to serve me?

I look around. “In the time of need did they all desert me?”

Helplessness locks my senses, the room turns black. I bow to the unimaginable.

Not the first time someone called my pain unfashionable,

Even easily eradicable.

Yes, my head has been bed bound for a decade and counting.

And yes, I can take another day of drowning.

I can take another head recounting.

But please take away all the shouting.

You’re not understanding what you are doubting –

And I’m simply looking for mounting,

For someone who doesn’t suffocate by shrouding.

-JW

N

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You’re an oil painting left in a shed to decompose,

The loneliness eating up the corners, pulling at your clothes.

You’re a sunset too bright to photograph for a fool –

The lizards are taking it in but you’re too precious to ridicule.

Your hair is grayer than foggy graves, flowing aimlessly.

Sentiment is a booked club, when I try to check in – no vacancy.

Your suit fits you well but so does the box cutter…

When you hear my knock, you might want to declutter.

Can you feel me entering, can you hear me tripping on steps?

Are you running or this is one of those mornings

Where you so tragically overslept?

-JW

Night Terrors

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I saw curious things happening over and over:

Panicky disco stars bursting open the backdoor,

Laying under the covers, miserably needing a shower.

I was tongue tied but Jay kicked them on the floor.

Three women waltzed in, severed head in each hand.

Our sheets soaked in tears of virgins awaiting suicides.

Is this a movie scene? Can I at least pretend?

Suddenly, I was sinking like USS Silversides.

You don’t have to believe me when I tell you this last part

But I swam through the trench for hours, encrypting signs.

Corrupted brain exponentially filling with rage, growing smart…

I vomited numbers yet no one tried to read between the lines.

Then someone opened the blinds.

-JW

Shadow Play

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“I would die for you” is an easy thing to say

When you lose the will to do so every other day

Because instead of pessimism you want your life to be a cabaret.

Anyway…

The other morning my brother claimed there’s no reason to pray.

“Skip it. Douse the guilt at the bottom of another ashtray.”

It blew my mind back then. But the world spins too fast

And now I may.

Am I waiting for permission? Am I begging for a leeway?

People will grieve someone who’s seeing red

But won’t pity anyone who recognizes the grey.

I would still die for a sinner, but which one of us is it?

Difficult to say.

Let’s pretend nothing was said during this shadow play.

-JW

Writer’s Battle Cry

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I cannot fall asleep before I’ve created another one of these part-time sentence sketches.

The grey clouds are forming a cradle but I refuse to enter. Too far from static and background retches.

Some acidic light spills on my spine, it makes me live through it all again, pulsating,

But it barely rings a bell anymore. I tied a rock to this wraith and sunk it by tirelessly creating.

I cannot sleep before I know that I’ve saved another day by being drained, not going down the drain,

And if you asked five years ago, I would’ve declared this sanctuary insane,

Maybe changed my name to Jane.

So here I stand, alone in the dust bowl of traumas that made me, of black bat licorice spat in my direction,

Cascading through shallow storms, calming my insomniac mind with bad rhymes, trusting your discretion.

-JW

Dead Flowers

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Electric sounds blasting through the floral patterned wallpaper.

The sound of seven hells bursting open leaves my lungs as a vapor.

Oh, go along, nothing to see here, simply red and yellow ichor exploding –

Yet the mirage above the mountaintops is rapidly imploding.

Can’t find the light switch, perhaps it has finally evaporated.

Perhaps I’m breathing in its suicide, and my chest feels weighted.

The ceiling is leaking holographic liquids into my tired hips.

Please wake me up once it’s all clear and the curve finally dips.

-JW

Butchered

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The thief inside of me has fallen for the undercover cop.

Each time I reach for the ledge I feel my stomach drop.

Now I question your intentions, were they withered all along?

If I only knew earlier – too many rights make a wrong.

It seems like you’ve thrown out my voice for the people to rip apart.

The brown eyes to kill for have turned my story foggy

And taken a butcher knife to the heart.

-JW

Amateur

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“She looks like a porcelain doll thrown on the floor, then glued together.

Beauty might be timeless but the cracks are visible, pressed deep into the leather.”

Sure, I’ll be by her side when another piece falls out and she’s unable to cope –

But it’s not me she needs. It’s a realization that only she can slow the downwards slope.

Another sour lover or back-alley deal won’t make her understand, no way.

Who am I to judge how she hangs in there by the very last thread, I’m no saint.

All I can do is tell her that no one notices the porcelain shattered inside of her.

“The cracks might even be imagined,” I say. And she plays along.

What an amateur.

-JW

Taking Cover

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He first saw you the night you turned nineteen,

Bleach blond fantasies, mind desperate, yet keen.

Outskirts of desert formed your idea of love –

Now you have a pocketful with nowhere to shove.

He seemed to forget all the lessons you taught

And maybe too often he called you a fraud.

The years will fly by, the betrayal – remain.

The time will teach you to breathe but not to refrain.

He now has a mansion and a Las Vegas wife,

The most cheerful things that money can buy.

You can’t help but take it in, moment or more,

Before spiraling, throwing out all you deplore.

…He knew you never stood a chance against a goner,

Too lonely to cry for help, too scared to dishonor.

But you didn’t go back to the deserts he mudded

So maybe, just maybe, you’ve always known that’s it better

To run for cover.

-JW

Exitlude

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But she fights back,

Flipping off the pearl Cadillacs,

Spitting up cigarette ash.

And the clothes won’t fit like they do on rack,

And no one cares in the city of trash.

She was broken long ago,

You can barely hear the crack.

Let her go.

With or without you paying attention

She will win herself back.

-JW