Awakened (collab)

 Awakened

By Patrick Cann and Lara Hocheiser

Awakened: flash of thought, I must create now. Throw on the lights, wild awakened night, scramble to jot it down. What’s comes out on the paper is brown. Dried up blood from some old wound. I have been writing awhile it’s noon.

Sparks in the fade, combusting parade, say no more to broken in greys. Electric storm sores, overwhelmed unsought, metronomic cascade. Strain explosions overwrought.

Wringing out my hands. Hanging in the balance. Balancing on a chance. Walking a tightrope. Gaze a glance. My eyes entranced. Melded mind melt on rye. Think some more, I'll die. Have a bite of it, or try, mouth too dry.

Despondency cloying, thoughts overflowing, spiritus weeps in the rain. I cannot contain, I cannot ground, I cannot orbit subtlation of sound. Hippocampal madness confounds. Hope is not a vowel I can trust.

Hope is not a must. Misting from face and sky. I cannot live, I cannot die. Eternal in my existence. Sweeping across the plains of insistence. Forced to be here. Restrained. White jacket. With buttons and locks. Amygdala and zero fucks. Giveth me my freedom of arms. I will do hard. Will I do harm?

Harnessing all that is wrong. Wrought by a warranted witness. Inside my mind he whispers, 'nothing is fine." Who is it that watches and whispers to me? Who is it that hampers my highest hopes with screeching metal fingers nails down the blackboard of my mind?

White knuckle suffrage, wobbling meekly in after match glow. Pyre and phase, my mind eternal blaze. Rationality estranged, how did I get so fucking deranged?! Apoplectic heart in darkling plaster. I'm burning this forest down. Negational prescriptions in cognitional shatter disaster.

Laughter. What’s the matter? I come to. I see you. I put out the flame. I remember my name. I remember your face. It puts me in my place. A thousand balloons deflate. Open the flood gates. Memories and tastes. Love making not estranged. Struggling to reclaim a piece of me I was when not insane. Humane. Kindly I refrain. Maniacal no more. For a few moments. I’m knocking on your door. How did I get here? And what for?

You said I was not enough; enough is an ambling horror. Not well; unstably shambling down. Not inside the lines; spiraling ever and out. Disordered; neurons flickering and trickling doubt. Anxiety; nervously shackled and shout.

You said I was disabled. Disinterested. And yet obsessed. Compulsive. A skid mark on your undies. I was dried blood in your white dresses. Dressed like shit. Shitting bricks. Rambling for a fix. Fixing to get stitches. Stitched and attached to attachment issues. Issues with my tissues. Doing yoga poses on instagram for fans. You said I was a narcissist. You were wrong though. I was great. I am the greatest. Cream of crop and atop the sky. Grander than the greatest I. I am that. Remember? Remember that time I did charity and remember how kind I am to strangers? I am not deranged. It’s this damn container. I am stuck here. Struck by fear. Or larger than life and I don’t fit. Don’t fit in. Insert yourself here to fix my pain. You can’t and didn’t. You won’t and you shouldn’t.

I won't be saved, I choose the manner of my collapse, my plummeting and cave. I refuse to be muddled by the middling stage. Phoenix and sage. I'm eviscerating this gildering cage.

Sage my space.

Cleanse my soul.

Goodnight grace.

Goodnight world.