anguish
is a selfish emotion
and a raw cry
made from the belly of the beast and all those terrors unseen
something honest and hardly admitted
kept behind fan and sleight of hand
it is something you hide for fear of being told;
do you only think of yourself? Are you aware others have it worse?
why can’t you just GET A GRIP!
You know all this just as you know
you can’t take one more minute
one second longer
staring at now familiar nightmare
feeling it turning you inside out and back again
(as if jaws were attached to your innards, pulling like a lover would)
anguish is an exhaustion
hunchbacked and ready to tear its own eyes
where if you could you would
run away from yourself never to return
where if you could you would
S.T.O.P.
where if you could you would
scream and never quit
until either your heart refused to beat or
something changed permanently
O the salve of darkness, shrouding such horror
how you have begged for change, change, change
please make it BE ANYTHING BUT THIS
and much as you did, nothing ever would
ease up and chill out, letting the prisoners out in the sunny yard
NOT THIS TIME or so if felt when again and again
you returned to
anguish
who is not definitely no
friend
but the enemy you know better than you ever wished
dangling by garter
over an old dunking pond
the shape of witches still burned
screaming in treeline
