These lines
I've heard them before
I know what they are
You know what you are
Yet sometimes you run too far
Just hoping that you fall
Pulling us down with you
In a fiery flash of nothingness
Reduced to an urn of burnt shreds
Tourists flock to watch and film
The ripped cloth atop this hill
Remnants of an era we called our own
Unknown how perfectly flawed it was
But as the wind died and left us alone
The world tore apart all our hope
And watched the shreds fall like snow
In fleets upon the land
We might call home
So for fifteen years I've waited
Once above what is now six feet of mud
Hidden below ancient song
Gather in the line as it begins to rain
And see only shreds remain
Nobody wants to remember us
More than they wish to remember
The gray sensation of pain
Which still persists on a good day
Dull like a knife dragged
Across one too many hands
One more line, just
One more time
The world around us flattened out
Opened up to the blister inside
Today is the first day
And with that I'm fine
But—
Today is the next day
Of the rest of your life
Surely it's the last day
I've said for years and years now
So many hours nothing good
Can come from writing on and on
Tried every way out
For seven years
I think I've shrunk now
Or the room around me has grown
No matter what it feels like
More space to move around
New languages
New songs
Every story written aloud
But with no true voice
Just a shrill tone sounding
Empty and afraid
Waiting for the song
Waiting on the pavements as I did
But the voice that spoke from me
Broke what was left leaving
Nothing here, nothing inside
Well, nothing alive
Just keep going
Keep on going
But nobody sees how lonely
How hard I've tried, singing
A little ditty and wondering why
Am I passed along until
The sky is weeping at my speaking
So no use for a mouth
No talking allowed, nor these eyes
If what you suggested is a smile
Means nothing to you, nor these ears
Can't feel anything either
What's to fear now?, you'd say
And no use in trying anyway because
Everything that was ever possible
Has happened one way or another—
Except to open up this box
That I tried in vain
I've written infinite lines
In the most beautiful song
But nothing else can come to mind
If what they call “passing away” cannot
Succeed in setting one's sufferings aside
Then another problem will arise
But with nothing to control, not even age
Because inside this box time does not pass
Quite like outside, hoping it's the same
As it was before I entered
And again, I'm fine
But what's with all this crashing feeling
With closed doors to avoid revealing
The sound you hear is clear enough
To know the situation
Is far more than rough
Assets sold beyond control
To show what more is yours is lost
But you and I won't get away
When the firing squads have not been paid
The choice is not ours to make
Yes, they'll take everything away
Yes, we all feel great
Yes, do you hear your own name
Do you know your name
Do you know
No, not
Not the same
Something is unsettling, an off taste
A sound you can't recreate
The dull sensation of pain
(Of a knife to your hand)
A nightmare you forget
And when you wake, only a
Feeling remains, shifting and searching
No, it's not
Quite right (Nothing
Here, nothing ? Inside)
That was named (Well)
Feel ()
Big needle in arm (Alive, and
Dripping delightedly with great incarnadine
In your hand, wondering where—? Nothing)
Where am I (Alive)
You are here (Nothing)
Here am I (Inside)
Have been for the past two days
Forever in a mindless haze
Forget what that means
Not that we ever knew
Can feel what you mean
In the air it's in (Nothing)
A thick smoke (Alive)
Feel it in your lungs
On the tips of your fingers, oil
Oil, rubber, rubber, rubber,
... Burning metal
Sleeping silence, nobody feels
Drip, beep, flash—
Steady drip
—Off his finger (no)
—Off the wheel (no)
—Onto the hood of the car
Rain in the forecast
(? Do you recall your day)
(Picture the sound)
Summer swelter in British heat
Shuttered faces every way you look
Unnatural waves of warmth
Storm coming, but trains to the sea booked
Full to the brim, frothing fields
Warnings on the news
Failed crop yields
Nothing else to describe
The feeling we all knew
One hundred more to the countryside
Ditch the memories
And catch the lines
Train lines, planes away
Or ley lines, either way
Such fates lead inwards
But as you cross the street into the center
Getting closer
To the central business district
(? Not yet)
(I am ready)
Step down
Crowds below
Get past it, cowards
From your point on the stairs
Said soon there’ll be hell to pay
Beyond the pavements and through the day
But the people shift in a blur
Too many on every side
Faces sharpen and slide
In blurs of watercolours
Depicting a crowd endlessly wide
You only say
Let us return to our normal lives
With no assumptions:
(? And the rain)
(Yes.)
Thermal blasts from a hundred people
Your surroundings roiling like a shark
Scrabbling for prey on the sea floor
Throwing up mud to catch the inescapable
The currents slow or even still
And the silt hangs around like heavy shadows
Every side clotted too densely now to see
Whatever has been agitating me:
I passed a man with a face like fear
Stronger than anyone else
Distinct eyes, he knows
Something is wrong
Something bigger than this
While the crowd lives in a raging bliss
But something else is amiss
Nothing that we are aware of
Something we should know
And we lock eyes as he is swallowed
By the gazing mouth of the car and crowd
And I know I shouldn't be here
But those eyes (Alive, well) so I ran
And the rain (Inside)
Oh, the rain (Alive)
Tears it all down (Alive)
Down their faces (Alive)
Posters sag and crumple (, nothing alive)
And shredded beneath their feet
Pulped flyers with large letters laid
Down in black, begging lines of “MISSING”
Now little more than waterlogged kindling
(? But we all know)
(Have you seen it)
The roads out are packed and
Nothing can happen
Not like this
Must get away, said the face
Nobody left to say
“What's this all for?”
And the rain mats our faces
As you slip and slide on the muddy gravel
Can't imagine the feeling
You don't see him there
Eyes and mouths and yelling
Faces caked with mud
Not blood, not yet
Nor after the faces drift away in the wind
Yet nobody knows these secrets
As I burst out running
Into the open
And the feeling is so freeing
Into the outside
Away from everything I've ever known
This thing you can't feel
This emotion does not exist within you
And yet it's coursing your veins
At 120 bpm — though I know when it's passed
Our soul will starve far too fast
I don't think there's anything alive
Again that dead feeling of
A rabbit in headlights (Alive)
Eyes flaring, bloodshot brain (Nothing inside)
Ears not hearing (Nothing)
And in slow motion
You can't escape the cold
Nor the summer swelter
Open up you feverish spot
The air has dried
But the ground has not
So with no control in your body
Incapable of action
Like quicksand in an hourglass
As it begins to swallow you
Slip and your face explodes in a flurry
Of blood and your nose
You can't hear anything but the clicking
Of sand hitting the glass below
Can't feel your nose at all
As you try to stand up
Beside thousands of thudding feet
The hourglass begins to shudder
As you right yourself on the splintered concrete
The feet are nowhere to be found
Not one in miles
Beyond the deserted streets you stand upon
Nothing on the streets nor the sky-scraping horizon
But the face
The man with the face
Again he is here
But in you there is no control
Not in your muscles
Nor your bones
Anticipating the thrill of the hunt, the floor shudders
Every bead of the hourglass pulls down
As sluggish as you are
Moving through a salt shaker
Down the whirlpool of lost time
Are dragged shriveling (Alive)
You cannot move
(?)
(Nothing left to do)
The car ahead is swerving round
Though the streets are drying, it can be difficult
To cling to anything at all
Tyres slip, slow descent
And
I smiled far too wide for everything left
Seeing
The car ahead trailing wild
Dead ahead (Nothing alive)
Coming straight for me
And in the driver's seat—
The man
In the crowd
Whose eyes cried out
Aloud
Alive
Dead
Quiet
The hourglass falls on its side
And shatters
...
(? the ringing that persists for hours for hours with no reason to stop yet is the only pain you can feel while your body lies numb on the floor soaked pavement outside the embassy of)
(...)
the gravel on these arms
the water within
the cracks in your skin
washed away fears
emptiness left
silence on the asphalt
(???)