Anaesthetic 2: Nocturne

The days I can’t find. I’ve looked;

I cannot see beyond the pillow.

I’ve tried and tried, but in my dreams

Are my dreams; My aspirations are of sleep.

During the day fall is my night rise,

Wakefulness is my fight, my solemn right,

and my struggle, what trouble.

The musings of malcontent

Infesting my consciousness

Like the nightcrawlers writhe.

Beneath my feet, the centipedes,

And all other things that impede

hide under the folds, nooks and crannies

of the darkest parts of my being.

Above me, the moths breed

In my fleeting thoughts of recluse.

Within my eyelids, I find refuge

 And my only respite is when

The day stays away and my night stays night.

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Promise 8: Blank

Illuminated by a blank white screen

my reflection. The void staring back at me.

I see the lines on the display, like needles.

that prick my skin, I bleed not blood, but tears.

From my eyes, I scrape the disbelief away.

My heart in blank and my few thoughts,

fraught with frustration, my mind in blank.

As vacant as the bright white screen,

Blank as the sheet I wrote this poem on,

and about as painless as the clean slice

of the paper through and in between my fingers.

One look at my hands and I feel my index finger well up

with anticipation as I pinch the sides. Nothing.

A bloody disappointment, Not even a droplet.

It’s my writing hand that steadily holds the pen.

It remains frozen in place, with nothing to say.

Blank are my thoughts as I read the lines unwritten,

that would send all my happy thoughts to ruination.

Blank as the time before and blank as it was after it happened.

As void and empty as I wish it was after it was said and done.

I wish it could have been that blank like it was before.

and I could pretend that it never happened at all. Forget.

I could carry my vacuous smile when everything was so simple.

I wish to be so blissfully ignorant,

but now I try only to think of blank

Because blank is all I want to think of you.

Promise 7: Fragile

If I make both outcomes,

Either of which are inevitable

Make both a win-win situation

Then I nullify any heartbreak.

But what is more depressing

Than love with neither hope

Nor confidence that the fire

With its fragile ego unguarded

Could ever hope to make jealous

The passion that once bubbled within?

Effervescent infatuated bumblings

That boiled over in froths and spills

That overcame wills and various chills

And I on the receiving end thought

For once I wasn’t foolish enough to think

I would ever make it this far to finding

Myself with another soul in this world.