a person in five phrases

i.

held in the vise of despair without visions of hope

nails sharpened into swords while the stomach sours

bellowing a volcano of spite: i walk about normally

with the abnormality of insanity crying for dead dolls

washing their dirty faces to see mine in a clearer light.

but can Pepto-Bismo coat the sorrows that already cause me to blush

that flush wholeness into the life i bear

to muster whatever laughter i can bundle like a hyena after a kill?

ii.

i reach through the fog that sits at the center of my mind

and touch whatever of limbs limp toward the earth

stretching to touch a caring one somewhere in this universe

a prisoner shackled and manacled upon the the torture floor

awaiting the CIA to enter and smash the dead soul of me

into some meaningful life so that questions arise.

they see not blood nor hear the streams of screams.

they bruise not humans with a name

but immune, beat those with answers that kill some self 

more notable than i, some other more barbaric than they, they say.

iii.

the one-color world bothers me.

i look into the eyes of grey and see darkness.

all about are smiling faces with glued expressions

and i am frightened by the sincerity they bear.

the tenor of their conversations is noise

unhealthy at the end of all.

iv.

a humming in the atmosphere reminds me of a lost butterfly.

somewhere between a need for freedom and healing

the spiritual and the mental fall apart.

it needs to return to the flow of life

unable to maintain positions o'er the mystical sea.

attacked like children chasing a fleeing ball

it's a slab of flesh destined for abuse

to be chewed upon, then vomited into a trough.

it's how i feel, atrophied: gnawed and discarded.

what is this death in me? regurgitation?

an attempt to reclaim a life before the surgeon arrives

to apply the knife?

v.

i'd like to fill the world with water and light

with clapping and exuberant laughs

but my limbs fall limp and my spirit faints

feeling lost among the lonely, fumbling

in search of meaningful land. 

*I am not what happens to me; I am what I choose to become.

  -Carl Jung