the words have felt
too real lately
their bittersweet
ecstasy of agonies
a little too filled
with a poignancy
bordering on repugnancy
trying to lose myself
in other authors and
the subtle mastery
they effortlessly exude
but then i realize

i know how they make the dough

i forget sometimes
because the bulk of my
shitty contributions
are stream of unconscious
scab peeling sessions
no thought beyond
one ugly line to the next
a human cockroach
feeding on dead skin
for lack of any real
substance or value

i will sit frustrated
for minites on end
when writing a sentence
in one of my unread tales
seeking the perfect word
quitting in anger when
i can see it
i can touch it
but i cannot fucking
say it

so much like the real world

if i said half
of a quarter of what
i think
the world would see me
as a pathetic golem
a mishmash of unmatched
disasters in an
ever withering frame
padded cells and
around the clock monitoring
pills for lunch
pills for dinner
pills to help me sleep
pills to help me wake
pills to help me focus

but in fiction
we only see the final cut
edited and reworded
painstakingly crafted
and i judge my swill
upon this impossible goal
and the poetry
gets to be too real
and i don’t want to
constantly ache
but it is all i have
a constant emptiness
hungry or desperate or lost
the needle spins
and i grow dizzy watching

the fiction ain’t working
and sometimes
usually a few days into
a total spiral
the pills don’t sound
too terribly rotten

just because you know
how the bread is baked
doesn’t make the loaf
any less painful to consume
i know the recipe
even if the kitchen seems
to be on fire around me
or maybe i am
mixing metaphors again
i can’t tell
none of it seems real
maybe that’s by design
i haven’t been
guiding this ship
for a long time now
just waiting for a
sandbar or coral reef
to tear out the belly
and finally disappear
buried deep in the silt
where everything
i cannot say gets lost
in the murky depths
where sunshine is just
a vague glimmer
a tall tale told to
the tiny crustaceans
just as real as anything
just as false as hope

but fuck me if i don’t still dream
i wish they’d take that as well