Beginning of the end

 

You know that dream...

 

The one where you are

standing in front

of everyone, and as you

glance down then up,

you burn beetroot red.

Realising you are as naked

as the day you were born.

Then the laughter begins,

a wall of hyenas, cackling,

and you can feel your skin cracking,

and the tears starting to stream...

 

Well, that was childhood.

 

Every day brought that

feeling to the page. Every time

I spoke, every time I raised my hand,

every time I walked, or stood still,

every possible moment, good or bad,

tainted with that paint,

washed in that pain.

 

And my crime?

 

This is the question.

Was I a 2B pencil

in a world of pens?

All I know is that the erasers

were out in force, and my face

was drawn in scribbled lines.

Were the toothy grins

payback for some unconfirmed sin,

like the sin of being slightly different?

 

And by different, all I

really mean is unpopular.

 

They wouldn't have seen

the internal wiring going haywire,

or the fire in my head

when trying to connect simple threads.

But then, children are mean.

 

And I was public enemy number one.

To be or not to be,

a rose by another name,

a poet not a fighter,

a lover and a writer.

So, I layered on

the war paint, heavy cement,

and I dug in.

Survival instinct

 

I don't know how I survived school…

the bullying, the isolation,

the walls always closing in.

 

A mental prison whose doors

I couldn't ever unlock,

as I never understood

that my mind was the key.

 

I just stumbled through days.

A stay of execution, awaiting

the day they realise I'm faking it.

 

Trying not to speak,

not to say anything

in case it was turned back my way.

 

Or in case anyone was able

to see the flat, two-dimensional me

had no idea what he was doing.

 

Lessons leached away any brain power,

leaking. Struggling to comprehend

any meaning in anything anyone said or did.

 

Everything just washed over me.

 

So I'd sit glazed over, words soaking me,

as I gaze out of the window, at the rain pouring,

sloshing over my smoothed glass-like brain,

like the rivulets down the windowpane.

 

I couldn't hold it in.

Words floated near to my ears,

then drifted aimlessly away.

 

But somehow,

I caught brief snippets,

little fragments

that my brain stored away.

 

See, I've always had a strange mind.

 

Memories I need

are stored in a box

behind a locked door

labelled with a warning sign.

Whereas useless facts

spring forward

at almost any time.

Unless I actively need them.

 

A sponge wrung dry,

but the memories still remain.

 

But I always felt simple, naive,

lost, a set of instructions written

in alien tongue, but also a deep

intelligence somewhere hidden from

view. Just tied to the depths of my soul.

 

I don't know how I survived school.

 

I was in a daze

most of the days.

I'd be lost in my haze,

and nobody knew

I was running through

this maze, screaming

for someone to show me the way.

Low battery

 

The morning after any social event,

memories jumble like a sail blown in the wind.

Flooded with laughter, smiles, and love.

 

And yet straight away I inspect every memory

for possible failings - did I say the wrong things?

Why couldn't I remember that person's face?

Why didn't I remove my coat? That heavy blanket

against the outside, the quick escape if I need to hide.

Why? Why? Why?

 

This all fades as my muscles scream at me,

a chainsaw cutting through my core,

then pouring salt into the wounds.

 

Social exhaustion is not tiredness,

please don't get these two confused.

And don't assume that I won't want to spend

my time with you just because I am no use

for days afterwards - I still need company.

As shockingly, I am still a, barely functioning, human.

 

But right now, wracked with pain.

The ticking clock sounds like

the bells of Big Ben,

each echoing tick splitting

the atoms of the universe in half.

The hum of my computer

rumbles over like an aeroplane.

Low. Grumbling. Angry.

Blinded by haze, groaning over the strain,

only illuminated by the lightning pain,

like a nuclear bomb going off in my brain.

 

So if I seem quiet, distant, unreachable,

that's because I'm struggling to move at all.

 

Yet society tells me to pull myself together,

fall into another day of chores. Pull on a mask.

 

The allodynia, as my clothes hurt.

scraps of fabric feel like molten blankets,

hot, and weighted. Heavy like my eyelids

as they drag at my ankles, trying to trip me.

 

Thoughts, normally sharp as a dagger,

now only stumble and stagger,

before giving up and sitting, cross-legged,

a child trying to comprehend the day,

but getting lost on the first letter.

Then realising, sitting is too tiring,

so laying flat intead.

 

Gravity pulling the last dregs of energy

from my pores, sap from a tree trunk.

I collapse into a fitful dream like

a drunk, dreaming of pink elephants.

 

Muscles tighten and cramp,

avalanche pain pulls tears from my eyes.

And the sun aims its flaming rays at me,

blinding me, until I'm left, a mass on the floor,

 

begging

 

for

 

release.