2016 Slam (Edited)

All blockish sludge and festered matter--

This makes me less tattered?

Clogging the mind was never my intention,

Yet the words slick out faster if I’m a different person.

The world awaits for this year to cease,

But I long to be filled with hydrangeas and peace

Not broken glass or maggoty feathers.

My insides sludge together

“What does this define?”

“I don’t understand this line!”

You don’t understand the song of my soul

“Is this what you really feel, or is this just a role?”

Just empty words--that’s all they are.

Shut down the page, burn the ink away

Allow the pages return to their proper state--

Why continue writing for so long?

For those down the line unknowingly awaiting my putrid pen?

Good--they will be saved from this festering disease again.

My work means nothing

Not to you, not to me.

Certainly not to me!

It’s not like my pen draws ink from my wrists

Or that sleepless nights are spent with papers clutched within my fist.

Why should it matter

When it’s only an extension of my being, albeit shattered?

Exposing my flesh from behind the wall--

How could I care about it--it burns and is so raw!

Shut up! Stop telling people--they’ll convince you to persevere!

You don’t have the talent to compete!

I’m only trying to get better

But you’ll never be an elite.

Set the bar too high, your expectations too low and now look at your savior--

Right back at the beginning with nothing to show but your own failure.

Go down this path and you will only fail

But what else can I do besides wail?

Nothing--these were the cards you were dealt.

Play the best game you can, you whelp--

Return to the ashes where you belong; abnormal--

Not even your pathetic songs will keep you immortal.

Nothing--

That’s all you’ll ever amount to

You don’t know that--

Yes I do

Who knows you better than yourself in this black sea?

You can’t fight this; you know you can’t escape this reality

Yes, I can, with my pen--

Aren’t you listening, you silly wren?

Your pen can’t save you from this;

Like you said yourself it’s all in your head.

Those pills aren’t enough to be your bread

Your own family says you’re helpless--

Screaming when you don’t act restless.

I just want to be happy

AND LIKE I DON’T?

That would never happen to you--not to us

You’re out here, not coated in some stupid fairy dust--

Welcome home! You’re in reality!

Please enjoy your stay

You don’t want a happy ending?

Guess again, castaway.

Let me tell you a story, without defending…

I tried picking roses from the grave,

They grew inside my lungs, pricking if I ever misbehaved.

Calling a witch to prune them,

She merely said, “Succumb”

“Come in out of the darkness”

She opened her ribs and called herself heartless.

“Nay,” I said.

“If that were true, we’d both be dead”

Have we saved each other?

No, we spared one another.

Sometimes I see that witch in fires,

And hear her in the choirs.

I merely look and feel a thorn prick my side.

We exist a call away; maybe a sigh.

Yet aren’t we both drifting apart?

Maybe that’s how we’ll see if we both have hearts.