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I live in a world of brutal ice and cold

I live in a world of brutal ice and cold

Despite the temperature being five below...
these fingered handy limbs
awash with profuse sweat
dripping palms analogous
to a bloody busted gushing water main.

Mein kampf analogous
to a self made prisoner
who cannot escape being terrorized
and tortured within invisible
hermetically sealed walls of air tight prison
regularly hunted down
courtesy malevolent daemons
blood curdling deathly silent screams
echo within the sound of silence.

Earlier today some jokester
(like a batman out of hell
came round boppin
like some robin 
after their diet of worms)
riddling mine psyche
into a war torn zone analogous
into a veritable no man's land
heavily strewn with deadly explosives

detonating deafening explosive
rife with volatile anxiety,
I felt hunted and targeted
like a common criminal
forced to scuttle 
meager barebones existence,
and gladly plunge into an abyss
unbeknownst to me
on par with Dante's inferno.

Hours after grueling life and death battle
keppie (in Yiddish a lighthearted
and endearing way
to refer to a head or forehead)
severely suffered bruises and lacerations
courtesy familiar enemy
(known to me donned
as trumpeting evil 
doppelgänger barren of virtue)
relentlessly sadistically and tyrannizing
mutilating corporeal flesh
until flayed muscle and tendon
abandoned as bloody heap.

Visitation of cruel taskmaster
(omnipresent every waking
and sleeping moment of hellish 
fiery brimstone existence)
repeatedly brutalized yours truly,
no matter I did plead for mercy
for spirit who usurped eminent domain 
to please cease and desist
punishing life lessons
making a cameo appearance

after a reprieve of temporary truce
to drive me towards the maws of death,
yet stopping just shy of beating
the living daylights out
generic lovely bones genetically assigned
to one frazzled sexagenarian,
whose hellish existence
nearly brought to an untimely end
when victimized fellow
subjected to a maelstrom 

of suicidal ideation
when a mere adolescent lad
and days, weeks, months...
years, decades, scores
of ragged orbitz round the sun
chock full of accursed torment
barely alleviated courtesy
nine prescription medications
authorized by credentialed nurse practitioner
predicated on symptoms of social anxiety,

dysthymia, obsessive compulsive disorder
absolute zero relief 
against wanton depredations
rendered ineffective today
the seventh of June
two thousand and twenty four,
hence a feeble intent to communicate
insufferable beast of burden
wracking one figurative rolling stone.

I managed to drive to and fro a short outing
dodging, hedging, lunging away
from slippery grasp of nemesis
attempting to pull 
at sorry these excuse for legs
nevertheless seriously lacerating epidermis
only to realize, the horrific killer
left his tell tale signature 
with bloody phalanges
dangling from wrists linkedin to my arms.

Copyright © Matthew Harris

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things