Guilt
I awoke in front of the mirror again.
Unsure if I was still alive.
All I could see was the past pouring out
in a prismatic scream from dilated
pupils.
Colors bounced off the mirror and fed
into the linen closet behind me where I
kept my towels and dirty laundry in a hamper
on the floor of my procrastinating twirl.
This schedule is making me dizzy.
Waking up.
Deciding to carry on.
Arguing with myself; my sentiment.
Discerning if it’s real.
If it’s really what I want.
~
It’s been over a decade since I dropped myself onto
that plain. Since I fought with myself, amid
Angels and Demons. Laughed at my infinitesimal impact
on the vastness of a reality that could very well
just be a dream, within another dream.
I’ve tortured myself over the notions.
Whether or not I had any obligation to fulfill.
Knowing full well it was the gravity that planted my
feet, on this spinning ball.
So dizzy.
~
I spoke to my ancestors in the wood grain of a hospital
Door. The Devil in the ever-changing face of a stranger
I met at a party. She was Him. She was everyone’s sickness.
The worst parts of me.
But I never spoke to God.
No matter how much I cried out for him.
I stood under a light bulb.
Stared straight into it, for hours.
Swaying slightly, back and forth-
Like an egg at the bottom of a boiling pot.
Begging for Him to tell me that it was okay
to be alive.
Silence.
But, I did have a deep, and steadfast awareness.
A deep seeded notion that no matter how much
I wanted it. Felt like I had to.
I shouldn’t kill myself.
No matter how much I felt like I had to-
save myself, the world from the oncoming avalanche of torment.
Maybe that is how He speaks.
Maybe it was all a test.
Maybe I just took too much God damn Acid.
But, the colors still come- with the thoughts.
I’m trapped in a kaleidoscopic nightmare that the
Religious might call Spiritual Warfare.
I just call it Guilt. Guilt and Uncertainty.
Because I was too afraid.
Or maybe I had just enough nerve- clarity.
To not gouge out my own eyes
and pop the reward center of my brain
that I thought was the restart button.
~
The mirror is cracked now.
My fist is bloody.
I’m screaming.
But no one is coming.
They’ve given up.
They’re afraid- So am I.
The colors aren’t here.
Just the reflection of the man who
was once a boy who threw himself into the wrong realm and still doesn’t know the way back.
-James Kelley 2018
Copyright © James Kelley | Year Posted 2018
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