Tag: Last Day In Hell

Hopefully, you’re aware of why I’m writing this down –

You must’ve heard by now why I left the town

And sold your paper crown for pennies to your rivals.

I’ve almost left a dozen times but this time it feels final.

Take your plastic jewellery, don’t engrave it with “sorry”s.

You asked me to take this to my grave

But I tattooed all the ghost stories on my sleeve.

My skin burns in red neon when I sleep.

I wonder if you noticed as I burned out for you on display.

Now I can only pray that you remember this day

As I shoot by the state lines without saying farewell.

Six months ago I almost buried my pen

But this is my last day in hell.

Take care of those who outlive my patience.

Hope they find the spite to outrun your basements

And the tinted shadows you cast that can’t be washed away.

It’s your dark abyss now,

Don’t get too high on the power you dismay.

-JW

I plant dead flowers, they’re the only friends I keep.

Plastic roses laugh at me while I struggle to sleep.

My nightmares revolve around the land you created,

Completely controlled, with all my demons animated.

There’s no distinction between your time and mine,

All the minutes spent worrying, reading between the lines.

A car almost ran me over on my way back to you.

The only thing I thought of was your grin turning blue

As the news broke of me being another statistic.

You probably would solve it well, approach it all holistic,

And you would’ve replaced me a week after the tragedy.

The fact that you had to wait at all was a travesty.

I know I should hate the thought of my profitability

But my own head is lacking the basic civility –

So I bend for every wind or fire you put me through.

The reality calls me but you hide all its clues.

And I water dead flowers, that’s all I’ve ever known.

You sought out my vulnerabilities and took out a loan

Against the life that I’ve lead, everything that it’s worth –

Promised to pay the highest bidder, sold me to The North.

Despite my best judgement, I grew awfully meek.

You confused my tiredness with a character that’s weak.

One day I’ll sign off with a blood promise to never tell.

One day you’ll sign off on my last day in hell.

-JW

Let it go to voicemail, just let me go home.

I will break at the next ring of a telephone.

But you’re keen to get it your way, I must admit –

Somehow your gaze feels worse than a hit.

The walls stare back and their silence reminds me

How I’m nothing without your claws behind me.

The rain plays with the backbone I once owned,

I lost it to your hexes, intoned and cold.

Now it sits by the window you refuse to unlock

And the phones keep ringing me out of luck.

“Am I trapped? Or am I just overreacting?”

My voice sounds brave but it’s clearly cracking.

And my judgement may be lacking, that I know,

But the only light I see is the silver glow

Coming from another screen that you gave me

As a weak attempt to finally “save me”.

But your hospitality still tastes hostile,

A wicked circle of control, then a white lie.

So let it go to voicemail, just let me go home.

I will break the next ringing telephone.

-JW

Drink up on my silence while I still honor that treaty.

My words will gnaw at you

Until they will eat me.

But I will drag you down too

By your silky lapel,

Repeating simple phrases and lies you used to tell.

My sleep schedule remains in shackles and ruins

As I walk the streets

So inevitably human.

But you are unfazed by the beds you leave empty –

I wonder if it ever gets cold

In your land of plenty.

The curiosity is tickling my tongue with feathers,

And it gets way too chatty

In this awful weather.

You know what happens next in stories like ours,

You time your apologies

But miss by hours.

Once I part my lips, the temperature will plummet.

Maybe you will be home

Or at the highest of summits.

Perhaps you will call me to sit at your table

As I spill all the words

With speakers enabled.

But until that moment

Stay in your seat.

I will not be your atonement

If you simply stick to what was agreed.

-JW

My migraines help me kill the time

While you squeeze acid in my eyes mixed with sparkling lime.

I can’t stop spinning, crawling on the ceiling,

Looking for a single reason to not lose all meaning

In between the lines you keep feeding me.

(Or is it “lies”?)

Why do you cry when you’re defeating me?

And then you demand that I apologize,

Sometimes call for a sacrifice,

Just to ensure that you don’t get furious –

Because we both love a good fuss

But somehow it’s always me being scolded

About your walls not being golden.

“Honey, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and fight,

The ticket holders really don’t have all night.”

So you roll your eyes as I beg for a chance

To ever meet your highest demands.

You know that I’m worthy,

That’s why you make sure I feel worthless,

You tell me the world will be sturdy

Even if you replace me with a carbon copy

That complains a little less.

But I stay loyal

As I write down your crimes.

No alibis will ever soften the jury’s face during the trials.

You know what you did,

Starting from quiet decapitations you hid,

Ending with loud scandals they threw in the bin.

Because we let migraines kill our time –

But you’re no longer mine, it’s the end of the line.

I hope the sour truth will keep burning your eyes

Until my last memory of your tough love dies.

-JW

Six months ago I was tired enough to bury my bleeding pen.

Don’t even ask about the funeral,

We weren’t allowed to mourn in The Great Pretend.

It was almost comical –

How easy we gave away our freedom before the end,

Before the last convulsion at the oracle

Where he told us we’re denied the help of a friend.

But it made sense back then, even the stories, odd and allegorical.

“It’s all worth it because I can pay the rent.”

Well, partially, their greed was diabolical

And it followed wherever my wounded pride went.

“As long as it’s not me their calling hysterical,

I’m safe in uncertain times, this luck is godsent.”

The fear wrapped around my wrist like a tentacle,

Pulling away the keys to my home, putting my mind in a dark tent,

Leaving it there for a night in a burning pentacle.

I still said “thank you” when I woke up and saw my humanity bent.

So my grin grew cynical,

A black poison of the dirtiest blend.

I saw the vision my pen held in its ink with all the miracles

But I had no courage left to make amends.

I had no desire to reach the pinnacles,

Their wish was my command.

To my own ridicule

I sank into The Great Pretend –

With no will left to power through,

With just a loud plea to meet the end.

But that was six months ago and my pen had power over me, too.

Now its anger ascends,

Up, only up, until it sees sky in the sharpest blue,

Until The Great Pretend is so far it can’t steal our safety pins

And our truth.

-JW