Thursday, 09 August 2012

• Outpouring / Maybe As A Baby

  Outpouring / Maybe As A Baby

  I’ll preface by saying: I don’t know where this is going. I told myself I wanted to try something “new.” This isn’t new, I’ve written this way for years, but I rarely let the contents of such an outpouring see the light of day. That’s what’s new.

   

  I’m not a new person, I’m still the old person I was, and still the product of all the years, and tears, and fears that have made me who I am today. But I feel different. I’m older, but I don’t think I’m really any wiser.

   

  I’m still suicidal.

   

  I still want to die; always have and always will. I want to drink bleach and drain cleaner and lick lead paint off the walls; whatever it takes. I want to ingest toxins as violent and corrosive as the black, acidic thoughts inside my head. I guess in a way I’m still a poet. My soul still cries for symmetry. My heart still yearns to be loved the way it loves others.

   

  I’m still me; always have been and always will be. Yet somehow I’m different. Maybe it’s simply that I want to be different. I don’t really want to be me anymore. I want to be someone else. I want to be everyone else. I don’t want to fix my faults or repair the damage I’ve done; I just want to start anew.

   

  I want to hit the reset button and go back to the beginning and do it all again, but this time do it right. This time I won’t let fear hold me back. This time I’ll do what I should have done all along: lived life to its fullest.

   

  It’s only dawning on me now that maybe the reason I feel different is because I’m coming to an end. I’m finally reaching that point, that line I drew in the sand that says, “this is enough, you don’t have to take anymore; this is the line you don’t cross.”

   

  I’m tired of crossing lines and T’s and eyes and fingers and toes, a talisman against the forces of darkness that never work.  Maybe sixteen years wasn’t enough for Johnny Cade, but twenty-two years is enough for me. It’s more, actually.

   

  I’m still me, but different.

   

  ---

   

   

  Maybe as a baby

  I licked lead paint

  From the bars of my crib;

  Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me.

   

  Maybe as a baby

  Momma cooked kitchen cleaner

  Into my bowl of broccoli;

  Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me.

   

  Maybe as a baby

  Momma neglected to watch me

  While I played with pots and pans

  And scraped Teflon from the bottoms with my teeth;

  Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me.

   

  Maybe as a baby

  I chewed on one-too-many ink pens

  And swallowed too many blues and reds;

  Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me.

   

  Maybe as a baby

  Momma poisoned her princess

  With black thoughts and bad ideas;

  Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me.

   

  Maybe I’m just a baby

  Blaming Momma for things she never did,

  And maybe it’s because Momma never did a damn thing

  That I am the way I am;

  Or maybe that’s just me.

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