A Failed Poetry Attempt

Why does it have to be like this? Will I ever not feel the most intense feeling of shame and existential disgust within myself when I am incapable of writing? I'm extraordinarily fed up with going through periods of productivity followed by a glut of nothingness where even the mere thought of actually writing something down feels like a massive crowbar slowly cracking open my skull. Going on and off my pills in irregular intervals hasn't helped, I assume. But either I stay on the pills and suffer the side effects or I unburden myself from them and tempt the failing strength of my head and its abilities to stave off my suicidal ideation and constant unrest. Now they want me on Xanax. Or Lithium. But it could be much worse, I realize. I don't need these pills to literally stay alive, but in a way, it does feel that way. I don't know what part of me and my mind actually functions properly. Clearly not the creative part. Anyway, this is a poem I attempted to write, I don't know about what, but I can't continue it. It's not finished, but I am done with it. Looking at it any longer is bringing me closer to self-harm. Maybe I'll return to it later and flesh it out more, but for now, this little failure will have to stand for itself. 

The Tired Ceremony 

The mirror is a broken kaleidoscope

A mocking prism of draining light 

Your face

A disintegrating benzo

Chalkdust and soggy eyelashes 

Clogging the rust-caked drain.

Holes picked in the flesh

Out rises an arterial stench 

I wish my eyes glowed

Dig more out of your skull craters

Make them scintillating voids

Held between vacant stars 

Vacuuming all the imperfections.

I wish my rib cage stuck out a little more 

Like smooth rungs of an inverted ladder

Notching upwards beneath my skin

Or dead, bloated leeches

Suctioned cupped to falling musculature 

There’s always more to get rid of

My hatred will have its way. 

Your new body

Is a forced scream 

In daily sectioned fragments

Of determined isolation

My hair falls out one by one 

A nest of insect dreams

You can’t even shave

Without thinking of shredding away

Whatever's left of you. 

Your face

Could be more sallow

Shadows cast harshly 

Against the tar in your pores 

Starvation takes too long 

And the tiredness

Never leaves. 

It’s time to tell 

My withered frame

The old ceremonial truths 

That you’ve used to shrink the image of self 

Face the smashed mirror 

Count your numbered, visible bones

And remember

There’s no subsection of humanity 

Worth belonging to 

There’s no letter in your alphabet that fits

No mode of human thought

For me to find comfort in

Drive through the hate

Swallow the panic

They’ll try to tell you 

It’s not the world that’s falling apart

It’s just you

Trembling in your time-worn flesh

Veering towards the ultimate tilt

And remember, it’s a long way 

Down. 

Your new body 

Is pale light

Escaping from untanned scars

Barely able to illuminate

Scrawny shadows I’m slipping into

I’m wasting away 

With puked eroded teeth

Counting my crumbs

Chewing on poisoned saliva

And bubbled darkness

That’s fogging up your mind

When I’m done with you

Your veins will be the strings

To my broken violin.