All I had was never enough,
And now I’m all out.
All out of all the stuff,
I used to hold off all my doubt.
Nothing I gave was worth a damn,
Nothing I did could keep me safe.
From the crash and burn, the same old land,
The one I’ll never understand.
My brain has become so used,
To the repeated abandonment,
That the message in me simply reads,
“Oh, that was quick.”
I have been training to deal,
With that abandonment my whole life.
And all that that training has led to,
Is a mental break,
Several days of complete dissociation,
And a re-enforcement of my beliefs.
They will always leave.
Every single one of them,
Will leave.
I am not worth sticking around,
I am not worth treating like a human,
I am not worth my weight in salt and sand.
No amount of compromising,
No level of eggshell treading,
No hypervigilance,
Will save me from the inevitable.
I will breathe in the wrong direction,
And they will burn me.
Never more alone than in a crowd,
Stunned by silence in a room full of noise.
Eyes dart for a place on the wall.
A place to be still.
No more room in my skull for a brain,
No more room in my mind for the rain.
Out of favour with the family,
Out of favour with the clergy,
And shit out of luck.
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
Make it stop or I will.
Stay at home, little child.
For if you leave,
You will not like what you see.
Stay at home, little child.
For if you leave, and show yourself.
They won’t like it either.
Stay at home, little child.
Now’s not the time to stretch your wings.
Imprisoned shall you forever be.
Stay at home, little child.
Keep yourself all locked away.
For after a night of anxiety,
You will wake to a scorching fire.
It will burn through your eyes,
It will scorch your heart again,
One more mark for the soul.
It’s hard rubbish time.
They call it spring cleaning.
No longer fit for occasional use.
And so to the nature strip I am taken and dumped.
My modifications render me useless,
Not fit for another home.
Many will pass by,
None will look twice,
And the council will collect me,
For my slow and painful burning.
But not before I’m taken inside,
Rearranged with all the other furniture.
Just to see if I will fit.
Not before I am taken back to that lawn,
Then back inside, leaving grass all over the carpet.
Only then will they take me away,
Only then will I be dismantled,
A shell of my former self.
Sitting around until someone builds,
A makeshift me.
30 days and 30 nights.
4 walls, 1 head,
Not a sound, nor light.
The waiting game, for all formalities,
The body, the mind, and all fatalities.
In here I am human.
But I no longer desire to be human.
I’d sooner drink myself,
Into an early oblivion,
Than live with thoughts numbered 2,
3, 4 of a billion.
Plenty of time to lose more friends,
Plenty of time to watch the ones still there.
As they get on with their lives,
And succeed.
Some no longer needing me to care.
Others with weight to heavy to bear.
And for all that, what am I?
That I might be useless without electronic aid.
That I might be so easily forgotten.
What am I but part of the furniture to leave in the attic?
Stumble forward in endless haze,
I’m starting to learn this was not a phase.
This is life now, this is it,
Knee-deep in my brain and all this other shit.
My life is a formality, I am but a means to my own end,
Desperately clinging to normality,
Routine, a constant in a sea of chaos,
No effort left to spend.
I hollowed myself out,
Drowned myself in unemployment forms,
Swallowed years of blood, sweat, and tears.
With naught to show for it but some injuries,
Extra added depression, and a chip on my shoulder.
I swallowed sadness and bitterness at the hands of my family and supposed friends,
I swallowed drop after drop, trying desperately not to feel.
I don’t know how much more I can swallow.
Counting the seconds to Friday afternoon,
Like I’m on a seemingly endless road trip through the hazards of the week.
Taking the wrong turns on words,
Leading to countless accidents.
I am a write off, limping, rolling my deadweight forward,
Hoping for inertia to carry me through to a place of rest.
My ability to communicate for most of my waking day is now severed,
And the time I do get is bound to result in nothing clever.
It seems that no matter how carefully I navigate,
I’m all but guaranteed to get blood on my windscreen.
I’m hoping this weekend will give me enough time for repairs,
Inertia can only carry my deadweight so far.
Still I sit at the driver’s seat, nearing the end of my tether.
One more accident might as well be fatal.
You really ought to start hiding my keys at night.