Yes. This is new. It is also a kind of exercise. I thought I’d add this proviso after reading the piece again this morning. I was in a great mood last night, but I have been very much into writing lately and I decided with this piece to see how far I could visit the darker side, if only temporarily. And boy did it work. As I wrote more and more of this piece I could feel it affecting me. A sort of self suggestion. By the end a strange thing had happened. I actually felt as down and as miserable as the person in the poem which was certainly not my intention. I did not mean to bring myself down but I did. And that my friends is the power of writing on a writer. Beware sometimes of what you write.
In the quietest hours, just before the dawn.
I am awake, suddenly, in a sweat
The world stills as if in slumber.
But I toss and turn … I am covered in cold sweat.
And I hear my heart, my metronome,
… I feel the blood rushing through my veins.
I often waken from dreams of you, of us, of loss.
… but mostly another night spent without you.
And my mind races down avenues of disbelief
My metronome speeds away. Breakneck…
… terror, such fearful terror of my life now
How can I understand … what I don’t understand?
How can I believe … the unbelievable?
How can I live in this empty shell?
… with such an empty worthless (it seems) heart
How can I live with these feelings?
And as the dawn comes, as the first rays of a new day arrive
I will stand by the door
I will question, I will try to process the last years
I slurp tea and shake my head sadly … such sadness
… and that sadness never ends, never goes away.
It just grows until it fills my entire being … my soul.
What do I do? What can I do? What should I do?
If there were a god, he would surely help me in this black stygian despair
Wouldn’t he? No, he won’t. For believing in some god … is..
Like knocking on an empty door, shouting at an empty sky.
… so … so… just leave me alone
Yes I will wear a happy smile. I will don a cheerful face.
I will face another day with fake optimism and bravado,
… but inside?
Inside I am broken.
© 2018 Stan M Rogers. All rights reserved.