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By Dominic Vitz
i haven’t been for a while,
for i was afraid of what he’d say
to me
the doctor diagnosed yours truly
said i’d been bitten by a late case
of teenage angst, the type A
type dolls adore and fame rewards:
i’m stained with memories i can’t erase
my feet walked me to my flat
caught that in shadowy undertow
i didn’t realize my body strayed from home
so i shoot up a glass, because Hollywood told me so,
wishing my world would fold
into itself — “go origami swan & fly away!”
from the spiral-bound book of instructions
my grandmother gifted me, but she’s gone
swirling around in these mental
emerald whirlpools, i ponder and wander
wondering how those i loved are living
cuz self-comparison saps me of existence
five months left till adolescence is spent,
signing myself away to the subsequent decade
to a quest in which i’ll remain
another’s offering to the rat-race machine
i thought old habits would die hard
i figured i’d abandon my coping mechanisms at the door
but in the forest, the trees infect me,
affecting anxiety
wash, rinse, repeat:
only then can i silence the bees
repeatedly stinging my mind
their command:
purify your passions
release your desires
by washing your bleeding
hands, cuts all over you
(nails) nailed
(knuckles) bruised
and (heart)
broken, the knife luck holds to my spine
never before enticed my blinded eyes
tis the life of the tortured artistic
to write “me” into myth, i hold
my broken and bloodied hands
and let my sins seep into the severed
surface of my skin; my mistakes, caustic
causes driving the dog after his own tale
ends.
Beautiful and soul-enticingly human