Here it is again, that shaky over charged feeling,
The rush from the poison coursing through me,
Dependence, availability, sadness,
The three ingredients that uncover hidden pains,
I’m forever spilling what I feel into a digital emptiness,
All that is lost and all that is forgotten returns,
There is nowhere to go now, I am self-ignited,
I am lost in what can be, reality has no meaning here,
The pack I carry is heavy, the cup I drink from always empty,
Some souls get better, thinner, faker, happier,
Welcome aboard, we will never make landfall,
And you will never be free from your mind.
Lost in the secrets of sleep
Stirring from sleep with a jolt,
The heart beating furiously,
The pulse pumping,
A gaze wide and confused,
Covered in cold sweat,
Things unseen move in shadow,
Inner depths cause silent screams,
No way out, there’s no way out,
Lost in dreams of death and black seas,
What secrets do closed eyes see,
More, than woken minds conceive.
Into the black
And just like that,
I sink back into the black,
It envelops me,
Devoured by dark comfort,
I no longer resist the pull,
There’s no point in struggling,
It numbs all senses,
It keeps open eyes closed,
It mutes all sound,
It guides me down,
Then holds me there,
Until I can no longer breathe,
And just like that,
It releases its chokehold.
World Thirteen
Welcome to the future, where clocks now strike thirteen,
Individualism is no longer celebrated,
That human condition has been politically corrected,
One central government keeps humanity in stasis,
One totalitarian leader wields blind control,
Sprawling interconnected megacities rise,
Tech controls the nihilistic mindset of a dead generation,
People disappear by night without warning,
Artists, journalists, writers, free thinkers,
Lives are deleted as the world embraces sterility,
Psychological pharmaceuticals are outlawed,
Desperation fills crowded dystopian city streets,
Populations sleep in instability, controlled by fear,
Supervised, manipulated, punished,
This is not the promised bright new world,
This is despotism,
This is now.
The New Age of Revulsion
The world feels like it’s on fire,
Greed and stupidity pollute the air,
People suffer the reign of megalomaniacal pigs,
Morally corrupt child-adults influence and advise,
Disrespect and violence grow from desperation,
The stink of self-entitlement bites at the nostrils,
All beauty on Earth is violated by materialistic hunger,
Bigotry and self-indulgence are the new faith,
The new age of revulsion has begun,
Self-immolation is technologically delivered,
Mankind’s final act has been scripted and is in play,
A dystopia is birthed, screaming and untethered,
From this point there is no way back.
Slow Sinking Boat of Hopelessness
What have I done with my life, the outcomes don’t equal the effort,
I thought I was doing ok, well, the best I could with the hand dealt,
Everything has always felt so uphill, every choice felt thwarted,
I am unable to support my loved ones with anything more than words,
I talk so much, sometimes it feels like a con, but who am I reassuring,
I try to find hope in a world with no respect for the honest and loyal,
Debt erodes us all, it feels like there’s no escape, time is running out,
Words cannot build futures, words just soothe temporarily,
A band-aid fix, words eventually fall as fruitless as a life of toil,
Why am I wallowing, I agree that I cannot be everything to everyone,
But watching my children suffer, is a bitter pill to swallow,
I wanted to make life easier, but we all lead very different lives,
And we all made those midnight decisions that got us here,
It feels like life is one long shady deal, featuring different characters,
Deals with a workplace, deals with banks, we deal to get by,
Doing our best to survive between paychecks without drowning,
We may be better off than others, but ultimately,
We are all aboard the same slow sinking boat of hopelessness.
The Stand
I stand at the edge of a great precipice,
Eyes closed, I can feel a hot breeze on my face,
There is no sound, other than my own breathing,
The drop into darkness feels sheer and jagged,
The plummet, long and painful, and finally fatal,
I can feel the rock edge crumble under my weight,
I am waiting for the final slip,
The hands at my sides are sweaty and white knuckled,
Tense, I’m shaking within, the terror of waiting is intolerable,
The fall has yet to come, it could happen at any moment,
Vomit inducing anticipation, my body is racked with anxiety,
I can leave freely at any time and yet…
I stand here still.
Venomous Intrusive and Irrational
The night is warm and silent, breezeless trees stand still as corpses,
Intrusive venomous thoughts begin to enter through old wounds,
Convulsions of memory shake themselves into a distorted reality,
The familiar unwanted feeling begins to ripple itself up the spine,
Discomforts’ creeping fingers create a buzz at the back of the neck,
The skin begins to crawl, numb at first, before the unreachable itch,
It feels like a thousand tiny spiders suddenly marching across the skin,
The edges of vision begin to dull and darken into shadowy haze,
Uneasy hands begin to reach for the nearest item of solid comfort,
But it’s too late, we have arrived, the rational mind has left the building,
Now, there is only panic.
Madame Sickness
Madame Sickness seeps in, like a thick black gelatinous mire,
She hangs upon every breath, and every thought,
Her weight is immense, overloading with ballast,
However, Madame Sickness is a fair-weather friend,
While she lingers, she will leave her mark,
Like teeth pressed into skin, she leaves temporary scarring.
When Madame releases you from her embrace,
She vanishes, leaving little evidence of her crimes,
She will visit you again, but never when you expect her.
by Edward Burne-Jones (c. 1872)
X
I am not the night,
I am not the morning light,
I am not the earth beneath,
I am not the hope you seek,
I am unseen, yet everywhere,
I am he of greying hair,
I am one for whom no one cares,
I am just another statistic,
From a generation born fatalistic.
X
Dan Verkys 