Creator / imaginer: Dabbler in art, literature and sound.
Like a square peg in a round hole,
I’ve never really felt like I fit anywhere,
More Alien than Australian,
More an extra than a terrestrial,
I can’t connect, I can’t remember,
Life has been a parade of ghosts,
I’m out of touch, I’m out of touch,
Don’t invade my personal space,
Or encroach upon my peace of mind,
I am not your content,
I now find myself stepping away more,
Than I stepped forward before.
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.
I am a heated emotional bundle, full of liquid chemical energy,
Every muscle seems tightened and ready to burst,
All body sinew feels electrified, numb and activated,
My skin feels armoured and ready to fight,
So where should this energy be redirected,
There is no enemy,
There is no pressure,
Except from the one writing,
This energy always goes to same place,
It goes to bed.
The two of us sit and finish up a quiet café breakfast,
Another couple enters the space and takes a seat,
Two more, caught up in a high energy conversation,
An old lady reads, as her grandson bangs away at a noisey ipad,
A group of four loud workmen enter and sit right behind me,
The old lady looks over her glasses, hearing their foul language,
I can see my wife speaking, sipping her coffee, smiling,
But I am somewhere, anywhere else, I cannot hear her,
We are now communicating from distant worlds,
Why can’t she notice that the atmosphere has changed,
I close my eyes to reset, but the sound is everywhere,
Cutlery scraping on plates, different voices, intense laughter,
Different sounds seemingly competing for sonic dominance,
“Hello, are you even listening to me” my wife’s voice booms,
Not her fault, but her sudden interjection instantly angers me,
“Of course” I lie, I’m barely capable of hearing my own words,
The table of four erupts into loud over dramatized laughter,
It reminds me of my own workplace, nothing is that funny,
It is louder laughter than the greatest comedians enjoy,
Fake, people are fake, anger stirs as my mind splinters into shards,
“We have to go”, I try to dull my senses further but I’m at full capacity,
All of the sounds, all at once, are just too much for me,
“ok”, she finishes her coffee, her face fills with her displeasure,
Guilt fills me as we leave, but I feel like I’m just trying to cope,
I wasn’t always this man.
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.
Sometimes, I can lose myself for days,
Time passes quickly, like a rapid heartbeat,
When I find myself again, something is always different,
Following some initial confusion, where I don’t know where I’ve been,
I’m unsure just how long I have been the other me,
Which me was I? Was I kind or cruel, happy, sad, or withdrawn,
Sometimes I can lose myself for days,
And now, I no longer know which me is real.
You can’t exist with your head in the clouds,
For one reason, clouds fade,
They are invisible on a clear day,
Although prominent during a storm,
They quickly make way for blue skies,
You see, clouds are not consistent,
They lack any solid substance,
Constantly unstable and unreliable,
They are an illusion of escape and freedom,
Within themselves, they are empty.
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.
I have no light,
It does not shine within me,
This globe has no power,
This diode will not emit,
I have no light,
Until you flick the switch.
There is a hollowness deep inside,
A place I crawl into when I need to hide,
Where nothing can emotionally affect me,
It’s a safe numb place that no one can see,
Something activates behind my eyes,
And another me removes his flimsy disguise,
While I’m curled up within in my hollow place,
The other me now owns my face,
He’s uninterested in what you have to say,
He feels nothing for what you wish to convey,
He is my protector, he’s my defensive shield,
Guarding the inner me while I’m being healed,
Until a change within fills this hollow space,
There’ll be no emotion, there’ll be no embrace,
He’s insincere, his actions are purely robotic,
He’s a wall, dividing me from a world so chaotic,
Someday the colour will return to my eyes,
The other me will fade, once the chaos subsides,
Leaving me present again, with no need to hide,
Within the Keep of Hollowness, that I’ve built inside.
Dan Verkys 