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Literature Text
This is not a war zone.
There is no mass genocide in my country.
My family eats, and we watch, and we drive.
I do not have to work because it isn’t required yet,
And when the time comes a career is waiting for me, not a job.
Two guitars, a keyboard, a computer
Parents who mean well and take occasional interest
Games and music and books, books, books
I’m pretty lucky (though still not the fortunate son).
However.
There are men with axes and knives waiting for me.
The CIA or the FBI or the CDC or some such nonsense is watching me.
My father is monitoring me.
My friends conspire against me.
There are dogs in the night that plague me with acidic hunger to run;
Screaming women in the distance, cloaked in wind and the dark that never is;
Tortured souls in my food, pleading up from their little jackets of fat;
Long backlogs of everything I’ve ever done, on paper and in code;
A camera in every corner, every crack and crevice;
A cosmic practical joke played on me
Because I don’t believe in hell even though everyone must experience it once.
This “once” is very, very long.
Just because you don’t believe something doesn’t make it untrue—
“Just because you’re paranoid don’t mean they’re not after you.”
That’s what hell is!
Hell is on earth!
Hell is life!
(“No,” he says softly.)
Hell is the mind. Hell is the self. Selves. Shelves. Shovels. Dirt.
Hell is not other people of themselves, but
Interactions and reactions,
Quirks in the mind that make us laugh for hours without knowing why.
They all know what I’m thinking.
They know where I belong.
They might not know that I am—we are—also aware of that.
Can’t admit it in public.
That’s just not what you do.
There is no mass genocide in my country.
My family eats, and we watch, and we drive.
I do not have to work because it isn’t required yet,
And when the time comes a career is waiting for me, not a job.
Two guitars, a keyboard, a computer
Parents who mean well and take occasional interest
Games and music and books, books, books
I’m pretty lucky (though still not the fortunate son).
However.
There are men with axes and knives waiting for me.
The CIA or the FBI or the CDC or some such nonsense is watching me.
My father is monitoring me.
My friends conspire against me.
There are dogs in the night that plague me with acidic hunger to run;
Screaming women in the distance, cloaked in wind and the dark that never is;
Tortured souls in my food, pleading up from their little jackets of fat;
Long backlogs of everything I’ve ever done, on paper and in code;
A camera in every corner, every crack and crevice;
A cosmic practical joke played on me
Because I don’t believe in hell even though everyone must experience it once.
This “once” is very, very long.
Just because you don’t believe something doesn’t make it untrue—
“Just because you’re paranoid don’t mean they’re not after you.”
That’s what hell is!
Hell is on earth!
Hell is life!
(“No,” he says softly.)
Hell is the mind. Hell is the self. Selves. Shelves. Shovels. Dirt.
Hell is not other people of themselves, but
Interactions and reactions,
Quirks in the mind that make us laugh for hours without knowing why.
They all know what I’m thinking.
They know where I belong.
They might not know that I am—we are—also aware of that.
Can’t admit it in public.
That’s just not what you do.
Suggested Collections
Not exactly what I started out to achieve, but I don't dislike it.
Another poem about insanity. I put it in general, though, because it's less about the reasoning behind it than the "it" alone.
Just so I'm not misundertaken:
Stanza 1: View from the outside.
Stanza 2: One word. Self-explanatory.
Stanza 3: A very basic outline of my paranoia.
Stanza 4: A revelation.
Stanza 5: Nobody ever mentions the pink suede elephant in the middle of the living room, because that's gauche and outrageous.
Another poem about insanity. I put it in general, though, because it's less about the reasoning behind it than the "it" alone.
Just so I'm not misundertaken:
Stanza 1: View from the outside.
Stanza 2: One word. Self-explanatory.
Stanza 3: A very basic outline of my paranoia.
Stanza 4: A revelation.
Stanza 5: Nobody ever mentions the pink suede elephant in the middle of the living room, because that's gauche and outrageous.
© 2007 - 2024 electrokinetic
Comments9
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The Truman show was saddening. This was spooky and startling (which I assume was you point all along. ^^). Very nice. I like the first three stanzas the best (especially number two. So deep. 
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