Failure to Follow Form

 Failure to Follow Form

I have no idea what I am doing. That is not just hyperbole where I go on and on about philosophical nothingness, about not understanding what it is that I am doing. I am trying to write a poem that doesn’t fall into a gaping void of uncertainty and depression, and nothing is coming up. It is as if life itself is starting to forget how to follow its own rules. Life has forgotten it is supposed to follow up and down patterns, as if lyrically crafted by someone much older than I. The same way that no amount of clapping will help me find the syllables, I can’t find anything that doesn’t make me sound like a hopeless ingrate. Its rhythm is all skewed, like my attempts at Shakespeare's curse to man. In six months, we have had to endure six ends of life without a single new baby, a single good moment. Memento Mori is overwhelmingly taught while we struggle to find the Vivere. The end of my sestinas are death, death, death, death, death, and death. I might be better off trying to write a haiku.

I could write stuff like.

Snow will fall on Mount Fuji.

But that wouldn’t fit.

There is Nothing to be Afraid of

The scariest part of my day is about to begin.

Waking up is a struggle,

and getting to the bathroom a strain,

but nothing compares to the reflective menace;

Nothing is worse than my mirror.

What will I see today?

Maybe a young man full of vitality,

Who is built like a perfect brick house,

Every stone polished with care,

Whose tattoos resemble fine tapestries?

Or will I find a haunted abode,

Whose ceiling is matted and dirty,

With windows missing or shattered,

with a freakish rug made of terrifying fur,

and a fence that is crooked and faded?

I finally look up once I've gotten the nerve

And what I see couldn't be worst.

Save me from the horrible visage,

this twisted, purposeless abomination!

As I stare into the glass, nothing looks back.

Empty eyes without a shine.

Laugh lines I can't remember earning.

Hair that is somehow too long and too short.

A face unable to create a discernable emotion

A rotten, steaming, pile of nothing.

Someone please save me.

God look at this pitiful, pathetic lump.

Because maybe if You or anyone can see me,

Maybe there is a chance for something to come from nothing.

Maybe there is something worth saving.