Daniel Handschuh | + Follow Poet |
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Murderer

There's a murderer outside the door.
He wields a chainsaw because he's a fanatic for extravagant antics.
Fantastic.
He's manic. A bipolar man suffering the manic stage.
Some would say the diagnosis said otherwise. Some would say a misdiagnosis. 
Some prefer the word “prognosis.” Never reaching “diagnosis.”
It's a crisis. A midlife crisis, the murderer claims, but a life-or-death crisis for us. 
We hide away, we hide inside, eyes wide with fear, shedding tears, but the murderer's
Pride is like a demon rising with high fiery tide,
Emerging from the depths of the sea, attacking me, attacking you; we are never free, we plead on our knees,
We will never be free.
See?
The shaking door. We pour out or love, offer services like whores, we do have pleasures in store.
What more can we give?
Why are we forbidden to live?

There's a murderer outside the door.
He throttles the chainsaw and screams obscenities for days
While we are stripped of necessities and our lives grow more in line with brevity.
Our hopeful possibilities are replaced with impossibility
And our eyes continuously see the color gray.
Soon it will be black.

There's a murderer inside the room.
After weeks of waiting he holds the saw at our cheeks and it whirs.
Our stomachs stir and we vomit—we cannot stop it—
As the blood from our faces spews out and stains the place's walls
While our own walls are violated and we vomit—we cannot stop it.
He catcalls and the whistle drawls while our wills fall. 
He is tall, intimidating, unstoppable.

There's an executioner standing over me.
He holds the head of my fellow captive,
And I'm captivated in this captivity by my captive's head, suspended by her hair.
Her face was so fair, she was full of care,
And now blood drips from the stub of the neck
Upon my naked chest. I was the best, says
The murderer, so I was reserved for last, so 
That I may rest in wait for what is to come.
It appears it is here.
So I say goodnight to all the tomorrows that are left in our finite existence.

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