Disconnect, seems to be the only thing that lingers,
familiarity like pulse, like breath,
like work beaten out of your forehead,
all that relieves, all that comforts,
only ever a wish, despondent,
a reminder like a splinter,
small, intolerable,
stuck,
and in your fingers.
W.E.
It takes a lot of stepping in and out of yourself,
to know anxiety,
is a host you don’t entertain.
But most don’t travel in deep enough,
or away far enough,
to get an honest view of it all.
Instead, they entertain and feed it,
with the sugar and junk food of being,
with self coaxing,
blurring to a fine film of self loathing.
-Wesam El dahabi
I’m overcome with the feeling of things being taken away from me.
This sofa I lie on, worthless, but still they’re coming for it. My children’s home, my things, worst of all, my pulses and heartbeats, one pump after the other, gone, never returning and soon, they’re coming for the rest.
It was my lowest day since my father passed.
Death stood hovering, lustfully whispering in my ear, the top of my eyes heavy as I pen this in hope it is merely passing.
Suicide has always been repulsed by me, and I by it. We could never agree, it wanting swiftness and I wanting a spectacle.
But yesterday something happened for a moment, a reconciliation if you will. Perhaps it was courage catching up to fear. Perhaps then a duel was about to take place, let me set the scene.
If anything, it will be in the desert, a fitting backdrop for solitude that they both abide by.
My fear has always walked alone, marred by hypocrisy and sin, let us amuse ourselves and reserve to it the idea that it is embarrassed.
My courage too, alone and aware of its extremities. I once wrote, ‘I have extremes so far fetched of so far fetched’, and now perhaps you will see why courage, like fear prefers to take the solemn footsteps away from the crowd.
But this backdrop of a desert couldn’t be more fitting. It will make legend out of this allegory of my moment.
I rose from writing, head still throbbing, eyes still feeling like they were pulled down for a lobotomy and I undressed to walk to the shower. Perhaps I could wash this feeling away, I thought as I had an inkling of sense still remaining, tugging at me to not pull the pin, surely ablution would rinse this evil out of my soul.
But it grew and I could feel the devil inside me growling with such anger that it drove me to raise my hands to my face and place my fingers on my eyeballs. ‘Gouge them out’, he said.
‘Then what?’ I replied.
Silence.
He’s a prick of a bloke. He entices you with rose, wine and a whisper, gets you intoxicated on his voices, scented and in love with him, commands you to evil and then washes his hands clean from you once you’ve committed your deed.
Then he was gone.
I finished, dried and got dressed. The feeling waned but lingered faintly.
Suddenly, it daunted on me and I wondered where this feeling came from.
It has me confused and misplacing my demarcations between a trigger and a pen, a sword and words, a semi colon and a full stop.
I don’t know exactly what to make of it,
I won’t discuss it with anyone,
and yet, here I am writing about it,
the only way I can express anything these days.
Was it something I ate,
or was it a taste of my fate,
delivered to me in surrealist carrot sticks,
not dangled, but on a plate.
W.E.
Dear world,
Thank you for finding me unattractive,
what I couldn’t change on the outside,
was the catalyst for ensuring I’d toil my insides.
What dulled my need for your approval,
sharpened my self scrutiny.
What made me develop a shell so hard, so grotesque,
strong and impenetrable,
ready and willing to engage in the detestable,
also softened my heart to make me never use it all
against you.
I’m the monster you want to react,
I’m the quiet guy you want to attack,
the one who has a target on his back,
to empty your insecurities on, and all you lack.
I’m the meek guy who couldn’t speak up,
who had plenty to say but tongue was stuck,
caught between embarrassment and manners,
wedged between a wall and a truck.
A train wreck, a wrecked chain of thought,
conviction, confusion, in a web, caught,
loaded mind, tranquil heart, ready fists,
on the front line of battle, coming up short.
Perhaps the reason for introverts,
are created the way they are,
is that the world would not be able to handle,
all that was contained inside of them,
were it to be released outside of them.
W.E.
Art: Risking Enchantment by Margarita Georgiadis’
-white noise
That noise inside your head?
there is blessing in it,
give it the audience it deserves,
and it will become a symphony.
W.E.
The four am chase,
with one eye struggling to open,
the other just barely watching what you write,
amazingly, your hands can do what they are meant to do,
and words fall on a page.
Stepping between the ropes
brave face, consumed by fear, clinging on to hope,
stare into his eyes,
and in the third person see yourself about to become,
even more alone than you already are.
Everything between, is automatic,
amazingly, your hands and feet do what they are meant to do,
and you fight with valour,
the outcome is irrelevant, the battle is poetic enough.
Listening to the gurgle of last breaths,
those who know, know,
there are cries, there are hearts turned to the sky,
and then the last breath escapes,
amazingly, amidst the chaos, you know what you are meant to do,
and this once home of a soul, you honour.
This clamour, this clamour,
this buzz, this ringing,
this ruckus of a stage presence,
chews at you,
because you know you have to step up to something when it comes,
there is a task at hand,
and during it,
perhaps this white noise is the silence you need to pull through.
It’s the coma from my self,
it’s the hand over my mouth,
it’s the straight jacket of containment,
it’s the cageless prison,
it’s the psychedelic of awareness,
it’s the ejection seat,
when I am going head first into,
nothingness,
where everything-ness exists,
perchance i land softly in it’s palm.
Excuse me whilst I am there.
Poets operate in a vacuum of extremes.
Sometimes,
what we say is personal,
and as poetically written,
as weighty and prosen as it may anchor into you,
it is not universal.
Enjoy the word play,
but dwelling on the utter-ness of words,
will have you ready to tie your noose.
W.E.
Ruin,
has become such a familiar flavour
W.E.
No indigestion
the only consumption
that brings satiation
eat your fill
W.E.
I have a mistress,her name is sorrow,
grief,
shall be our child.
-W.E.
but how will sorrow’s womb be fertile,
if she leaves no room for my whisper,
how will I inherit grief
to carry on my name
if the sporadic nature of her call
is through the most mundane
how will grief grow bones and skin and eyes and fingers
if her bosom sees no sun nor candle
so don’t look at me as a madman, an adulterer, a man of the tavern or temple
just let me be this brittle being
hidden-unseen, having been
an in between, anything but unclean
the loss of a child strikes you mad,
when grief is a metaphor for dad.
W.E.
The saddest individual is not the depressed, not the lonely, not the one fighting demons, or mental, spiritual, or emotional issues, but the one who won’t admit them nor aim to rectify themselves, one grain at a time.
I can’t trust people who paint a veneer of perfect.
I don’t want a confession, I just want the truth.
That truth manifests in your presentation outwardly, the way you look at people, talk to them, stand around them, walk to or away from them, communicate with them, treat them.
I have serious trust issues with people who persist on acting outwardly.
W.E.
a pen and a thought
a kingdom for a despot
the only tyranny expressed
against himself and his lot
so bathe in despair
lather in the rot
and keep for me this cushion
this holding spot
-W.E.
-introversion thirty nine
punched well above my weight today,
walked out of the door,
even spoke to someone
-W.E.
It’s not that I can’t,
INTPA’s (because based on a handful of tests apparently that’s what the fuck I am) can walk wherever and hang with them all,
it’s that I don’t want to.
When you’re conscious of it,
when you make the decision whole heartedly,
does it make you conceited,
does it make you arrogant?
Perhaps neurotic,
self absorbed?
Must there be,
boxed in categories?
This or that, either / or,
against or for,
peace and war,
chaos,
calm and furore?
Who made all these definitions,
who voted on these sub divisions?
Were they premonitions?
Understanding of dispositions?
Or just fancies of men with access to manipulating others into submission?
To believe what they prattle, what they understand only between their own two ears, using that as a benchmark to measure the rest of humanity, a saleable idea, easily marketed to the masses, paid for with the gullibility of us all, our intense desire to belong to something, anything, an inkling, whatever, a string, a thread of hope even if it is to the most ridiculous and unproven, to the feeble and unscientific, something that makes us feel a part of something greater and larger.
Where do we sit then on the rubber band of social acceptance if all these categories of acceptance are just man made, man manipulated, humanity amputated, and simply regurgitated?
The myth of me-ness, of you-ness is quickly dissolved when your last breath passes your lips and you meet your reality, and then you know, you were never real, I was never real, we were pigments of our own imagination, waiting to expire so we may truly know our lot.
Oh look at me, pretending to ask a question,
been there, done that,
I know how all these fat cats,
got filthy rich,
whilst you and I twitch,
we can’t scratch the most basic itch,
but they keep adding illnesses to the DSM lists.
Do me a fucking favour, stop finding a cushion of comfort,
walk along the glass bed,
sleep on a rock,
stay stuck in a hard place,
get stung,
pricked by thorns,
it’s the most real way you will taste the truth of your condition,
don’t just dwindle off into the mundaneness of accepting the status quo, because it hurts to admit the truth.
Look further than the presentation of the stuff that flashes, and glitters, the answers are never that easy to get to.
If you arrive quickly, you’ll exit just as fast.
No, I’m not OK, don’t ask me because I don’t give a fuck really about how I feel.
RUOK works for some, never will I discount it, but on the contrary, asking some of us is fucking annoying, some of us just want to be left the fuck alone.
So let me beat you do it, IMNOTOK thanks for not asking…. really, honestly, IMOK with that, in fact I’m better off not being asked.
-W.E.
lonerloaner 