Dinghies

 

It no longer hurts. I plucked out the offending instrument with bloody fingers and drew me a new one with eight crimson limbs – each an organ of enlightenment – according to my sponsors @badbuddha.com.

I believe there is no saving anyone, not even ourselves – especially not ourselves. We are each bound to a fatal trajectory; we all reach the same destination over time. We spend our days with the masses chewing the cud and shitting it out. We are all members of the one great herd - all bound for the abattoir.

But enough of this bovine philosophy – I have a boat to catch and my memoirs to forge. This shit does not cook itself. It takes days of careful preparation and intense deliberation to float these little dinghies. There’s a cheap and cheerful cliché – a clumsy metaphor requiring little imagination; little boats adrift on the glittering ocean; the flotsam and jetsam of tiny shipwrecks; no survivors to tell the tale.

Imposter

I can’t write. I have no talent, no finesse, no nuanced phrasing or beautiful prose. I recognise my key attributes now. I’m the devil’s bagman. I’ll poison your chakras and I’ll piss in your well. Just so long as I’m felt – just so you know that I’m there.

This woman – random bitch – in the hospital – called me an imposter, because I smiled when offered a cigarette. A crazy move in the locked ward. No one smiles in a locked ward unless they are staff. For them it’s a job, for the patients it’s a grim vocation.

I have me a new vocation – king of the night, burner of the midnight oil. I’ll sit and drum on this machine until I’ve squeezed the venom from my brainpan into some form of magic - something that leaps from the page and makes for the jugular. I don’t care who likes it – I’m not handing out sweeties – I’m signing death warrants.

Here is the new credo – love is for suckers – hopeless sentiment for rascals and liars. I’ll be fooled no more by pretty words and winning smiles. I’m the singular and heartless beast that lurks beneath the breast of every man and woman who was ever burned. I’m an imposter; feigning interest in truth and beauty when all I care about is getting my rocks off and cataloging my experience for the prurient thrill I derive from playing the game with style.

.

Reflective

back
in the laboratory
of my mind
I concoct solutions
to ubiquitous problems
the silken intrusion
and delicate rub
of afflictive memories
the cocks and cunts
of youthful infatuation
the fascination
of the flesh
meshed into pornographic
reference
forced into grotesque
and novel shapes
made to adopt
censored smiles
and null identity
but these subtle devices
imperfect in design
only breed new monsters
bittersweet and unkind
.