It’s Tuesday

in a class I am doomed to fail.

 

My head is blurry;

I barely remember last night

and the things I’ve said yesterday.

Time is moving ahead,

but I am stuck,

driving alone on an abandoned street,

my mind.

I’m not who I was yesterday,

or last week,

or last month,

or last year.

I am a stranger now.

 

My head is blurry.

 

It’s amazing how I can trick everyone though

they still think I’m me.

My mask, it slips,

and underneath a scared child,

broken and tired,

stares into their sunken eyes.

I show them me.

They tell me to smile;

they don’t like the naked truth

because, cold and bare as I am,

I am not what they remember

 

I put on the mask,

tighten the straps,

hoping, praying

that I can squeeze out my humanity.

 

I fear what’s under my mask.

 

This child,

this @&#*ing alien,

is covered in scars and lacerations

made by the words of a man

she was supposed to love,

supposed to trust.

He too is under the mask.

Outside of it,

he apologizes.

 

I want to believe him,

but the child

holds her breath.

I choke back her tears

of pain,

of rejection.

 

I am the one seeking forgiveness.

 

I am sorry for trying to make up

for my own broken heart,

 

for the rainy nights I sang for Artemis’ light,

 

for the days I wanted to throw the sun

into the ocean,

screaming hymnals of starlight and mad obscurity,

 

for the felines that protected me

and the black feathers I collected,

 

for the heart that bled out

all its love,

none left now,

 

for the grey twilight

when I screamed to Heaven

and fell on my face,

 

for the men and women I loved

who saw the child

and fled,

 

for the blood that I tried to spill

in repentance.

 

I’m sorry for the raven

who cried out in darkness.

Its song was gentle

yet from its black beak

fell a fiery rain

under which I danced

and was purified

and then sullied again.

Now upon my finger

it rests in moonlight,

asleep and haunted.

 

I’m sorry for everything.

 

Reality cannot keep hold;

I’m slipping away into

my own fear.

 

From my blood come a poison,

hot and dry,

that feeds on living souls

I will drink you in

if you let me.

 

I am nothing.

 

The child is back;

she’s begging now.

She wants to be known,

but I can’t allow it.

If people knew,

I would never be free again.

 

Apollo and his chariot fade;

Artemis comes into view.

 

I am home now,

lying in my bed,

lying to myself.

 

I am not this child.

I am a beast,

a freak,

a ##^@ing &$%*@

before the triumphs of man.

From my lips

a new song rises,

cursing both Angels and Demons,

cursing the child and the man,

cursing my own humanity.

 

My mask is on tight,

finally,

I breathe in

and relax.

Insanity fades away.

It too is beneath the mask;

it can wait.

 

I am in control.

I should be after all,

shouldn’t I?

 

My head is blurry.

I need to sleep.

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