Lie and deceit have always been a human art.
Be it deliberate or accidental, be it knowing or in secret.
The words on a page are an easy trap, the tears
on someone's face tug at your heart strings.
An art, so I say. Human but untrue.
Smiles and sorrow, be it truthful or acted.
The warmth of a hand that reaches for mine.
'I love you' in the morning, silence for the night
Promises and heart raining all over the town.
When you're stuck in a system, when
do you know when you start hating yourself?
Is it when everything turns against one another,
or when surviving has victory over living?
When the bad parts of yourself appear to overshadow
your good sides?
When the system brings out your worst?
Mother Earth is screaming for your attention,
but the echo chamber is much louder.
Why is the system so insistent on replacing our human parts?
Does humanity hate humanity?
Replacing their smiles, their skin, their image, their words,
their art, their heart, their soul
with one of electricity and metal?
Does humanity hate humanity?
Are we falling behind in the race?
Or has the system won
and has it finally caught up with us?
A short bit of prose, something different from the usual poetry I post.
Word count: 1220.
Posted while I should actually be studying.
Have fun.
I'm sitting in a train, on a seat by the window. It's dark outside, with the only light present coming from my phone screen, stuck on only 6%, and from the screen at the end of the wagon, where all passengers should be able to read the upcoming stations. My headphones cover my ears tightly, playing music way to loudly and breaking my eardrums, though the song that blasts through to my brain makes the pain worth suffering.
Figures enter and figures leave. Every hour. Every day. Shadows move constantly, either taking a seat or standing up from it, walking through the wagon, from front to back. I hear the doors open. I hear the warning beep of them closing. I hear the whistle. Yet I see none of it happening live.
I don't know where I'm going. I haven't figured that out yet. I just stepped onto the train with very little option to choose otherwise, I sat down and I've been trying to distract myself ever since. The thought of stepping out of the train scares me. Of deciding which destination is meant for me. Although I have seen people cheer the moment the sun, still invisible to me, touches their face, I have also seen people turn around and run back in, afraid of what they saw. Some were too late. Those silhouettes, upon turning around, found the doors closed, not having heard the warning beeps, and banged on the glass of the window, pleading to be let in again.
In truth, I don't know what the final destination of the train even is. If it even has one. It has only yet stopped at other stations, and I don't believe it has needed to refuel, if that is a thing for trains. I wish I just knew more about it. About the route, about the transport, about where I stepped on and where I will step off, or where I should step off, or if I should step off anywhere at all.
I have met a few people on this train whose presence I quite enjoyed. Some stepped off a long time ago, and only spent time with me for a few hours. Others spoke with me for days, having only gotten off recently. They beckoned me to come, but the darkness outside scared me. I stayed on. I'm alone again, my phone still stuck on 5%, playing the same song over and over again. For once, I would appreciate some delay. It'd give me more time to think. But no matter how many people try to get back on, no matter how often the train rumbles, no matter how many bangs meet the front of the train in the distance, the train doesn't stop, doesn't slow down, it keeps on going.
I've been blocking out any sounds around me for so long, disliking the dread that came with most of them, the constant reminders of my uncertainty, that I missed the shadow halting next to my seat and trying to get my attention. Startled, I take off my headphones, the music continuing to blare through into the otherwise silent carriage. If I could see the eyes of the shadows, I know for certain they'd be on me.
The man speaks, but I do not hear him. The music still blasts through my headphones, touching the air around my neck, but the speaking man makes not a sound, despite reaching his hand towards me, as if to take something. Perhaps he believes I've been to long? Perhaps he wishes to throw me out?
In a sudden jolt of adrenaline I jump up, confusing the man in the process at which I make a run for it. I jolt out of his vicinity, noticing the darkened hands shooting out to grab me, one succeeding and tearing off a part of my shirt.
I run for the door leading from one carriage into another and throw it open, before passing through and making sure it closes behind me.
And for a moment, quiet. At first I fear for the door to open again. To be chased by the shadows, be forced out of the moving train. But the train only protests ever so slightly as it passes over the rails, while between the two doors I stand, both doors lacking the windows to see what's on the other side.
With hesitant hand I open the door to the next carriage, which I find to be completely empty. Not a figure to be seen. The seats are all empty and cold, and the carriage tries to promise me something akin to comfort, though underneath hides a hint of unease. I don't know what it is, if it even is anything, but the sensation doesn't encourage me to stay, as I rush through the carriage to the next door, opening it and closing it behind me. Through four other empty carriages I pass, before at the final one I find a need to rest. The train is still going.
Out of breath I settle on one of the seats. My music is blaring into my ears. My phone is on 4%. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. God, why am I such an idiot? I shouldn't have run. I'm sure I could've just communicated with them. Somehow. However possible. In what carriage am I even now? How long is this train? I thought I was-
Wait. The train is stopping. Or at least, I think it is? But as I look over at the screen where I should be able to read the next station, I find it black. Not even a bit of light is coming from it. Only my phone is left, with only 3% battery left. Shit. Shit shit shit. What if this was the station I wanted to get out at? Where am I?
As I stand up in a panic, looking around frantically, I find myself to get dizzier and dizzier, every attack on my sanity also an attack on my lungs. The music continues to play. Still too loud. But unable to drown out the sound of my accelerating heartbeat, banging so hard against my ribs that I fear I might explode. I don't even hear the door in front of the carriage opening, slowly and carefully. I don't even notice the figure stepping inside. I don't even notice the blood spatters on the floor. On the windows. On my telephone screen.
2%. The train is stopping. Quickly, as if the emergency brakes have been assaulted with a desperate kick. As if the next stop isn't a station, but just a place on the tracks in the middle of nowhere.
1%. Actually, when did the train start stopping? The music is still blaring. The blood is everywhere. The train before has stopped calmly, never in a hurry, knowing exactly where the next station was. The other figure in the carriage does not try to get closer, and I do not dare to look at it. When did the train start stopping? When did-
0%.
The music is still blaring. The train comes to a halt.. Yet I still hear it. I still hear my headphones. I still hear the doors open. I still hear the song of the train tracks.
I want to soar through the skies like a thirsty philosopher. Taste the clouds on my skin. See the ground beneath me.
I want to stretch them out, see their shadows on the floor, much bigger than me. I want to be more wing than skin.
I want feathers. Black like a raven's or crow's. I want to leave behind a trail of me wherever I go. I want to be seen while hidden from view.
I want wings. Beautiful wings to hide under. A limb, a cape, a blanket for when it gets dark. I want to fly over waves and run my hand through the water.
I want to be soft. I want to be gracious. I want to hide.
Lucky soldiers, lucky! Make your trenches
your home, make the Motherland proud.
Run, run, ignore the bodies' stenches,
in your little costumes, screaming loud
and belching out songs, our anthem
for a doomed youth. Lucky, lucky boys,
who does not want to be ransom
for their Motherland, amidst gurgling noise?
Sing with me, sing with war! As he plays
the pipes so gleefully, desperate for glory,
thirsty to win. Dance through his maze
as he plays on his pipe a taunting story.
Follow the Piper, lucky soldiers, follow
him down to your graves! I hear the pipes,
Lucky, I hear them so clearly, so hollow,
I hear him play his pipes.
Hear his vocals, hear his song, his cries!
His screams, everlasting, soon to be
mirrored, as the lucky one dies!
His shrieks feel like cutting me,
and all his cries are made without breath.
The bags of the pipes collapsing into
itself, as it sings a hymn like death.
Its third face, when it opens its mouth,
has already died, waterfalls of blood
soil flowing out, life spilling out.
Ambition leads to a bloody flood,
from a piper to a screamer
to a dead man.
I get to know your habits, by the soul of your trash,
but the eyes of the dolls pierce through mine instead.
Faces without bodies, like with concrete clashed:
people all different, keeping only their head.
I learn about your life, by the soul of your trash.
Do you pray every day, as God haunts your day?
Latin words on paper, the edges made into ash.
Do you pray every day just to throw your faith away?
I recognize your house, by the soul of your trash,
though perhaps the garbage is not from your stash.
Countless amounts of teeth, fallen through the bags:
a disgusting scene will be remembered and forever nags.
I went again to your address, to find among your trash,
a gift with a bow, appearing to made with pleasure.
Inside was a copper heart, Alan's name engraved.
This strange man's trash shall not be my treasure.
Fulgor repente deorsum incidit ex altiora
et contingit teneram signare libri pellem.
Odore est potente et est mihi vertigo firma,
velut si in abysso defigere mi oculos.
Dádhātu asmábhyam cákṣas yát ná vidyā́ma.
Dádhātu asmábhyam gandhám yám ná grayā́ma.
Dádhātu asmábhyam rávam ná huvema.
Fulgor repente deorsum incidit ex altiora
et contingit teneram signare viri pellem.
Odore est potente et est mihi vertigo firma.
Caelum oculos defigit in me.
Translation: Out of the heights lightning reached down
and touches upon the skin of a book and leaves its mark.
The scent is strong, dizziness.
It's like I'm staring into an abyss.
Grant us the sight that we may not know.
Grant us the scent that we may not catch.
Grant us the sound that we may not call.
Out of the heights lightning reached down
and touches upon the skin of a person and leaves its mark.
The scent is strong, dizziness.
The sky is staring right back.
One two three four one two three four
One two three four five six seven eight
Music moves through me,
dancing, following to the beat,
rhythm pulsing, melody halting
when pain shows its face again.
I take the Devil in my arms
and take another pil.
"Let me dance with you",
so I dance alongside him.
One two three four one two three four
One two three four five six seven eight
A waltz in the night, dreamy and pretty.
The notes appear to me like
a divine epiphany.
Pain again, stiffness returns, another pill.
The Devil tries to buy my soul,
but there isn't a lot to see.
"A curse bestowed upon me at birth," I tell him.
"A chronic punishment done onto my body."
One two three four
Five six seven eight
Is it a punishment of a former life?
A lottery I happened to lose?
Misfortune after misfortune, a prison
of flesh and bone, blood and hormone.
One two three four
The dance stops. The spotlights fall.
Only I remain on the stage.
The stain doesn't go at the third pill.
Nor at the fourth. Nor at the fifth.
There's no applause, except for my bones,
which do so the point of aching.
Here I remain with my hopes and dreams,
and the prison door the doctors don't know how to open.
Feathers fall as the finch flies,
approaching the ground with soft chirps.
His little wing twitches, the wind refusing refugee.
At least it got to live for a bit.
From one paw to another,
the cat switches again and again,
but the pain remains in her paws and back.
At least it doesn't scratch anymore.
Over the ground it crawls,
two legs broken off as she seeks sanctuary.
One of her front legs is gone, probably somewhere far.
At least it has six legs left.
In my bed I lay with wide eyes,
as my bones ache and crack with and without movement.
I still remember the choreography to the music, still wish to dance.
When is it going to quit complaining?
