The Morbid Sting

After 17 years of secret attacks. I have finally been brought into the mix by the only therapist I trust, the only mental health professional I gave permission to treat me. Here is my first poem expressing how I feel about my new diagnosis.

The Morbid Sting

The paranoia sweeps in uncontrollably from a place I still cannot identify,
And when the sweetness of rock and roll or Dylan cannot bring me back
I am forced to threaten myself with an ending I swore to my angel I would never do.

I wish I could break it in two like a piece of rotten wood,
But instead I am left standing along this trough of dark memories
And I am forced like a pig to consume them and digest them into
The neural complexities of my ego’s.

What is real?

What is truth?

Am I the sum of all these things,
The calm of her voice and the poison of my youth.

I have no place in this universe of myself.
It is lonely and obtrusive.
It plagues my will for helping the lost,
Stripping me of the silence that kept me asleep for so many years.

What awakening have these doctors brought with them?
Do they know they may have killed my soul,
Forcing me to swallow their logic for things they couldn’t possibly digest themselves,
Because they have found it either impossible or too absurd to be anything more than a grand magic act.

I have not placed myself in their hands.
They have placed theirs upon my throat hoping to choke out the life of something I had defeated long ago,
Something they chose to resurrect only to take credit for marking its identity
And filing it nicely into their most recent version of the DSM,
The New Bible for the rules of exorcism.

I heard the invasive instruction.
“How do you kill yourself, and save Chris”

And now I sway daily over this lake of fire,
Hoping for her to save me once more,
Once more.
I promise, never more than an infinite amount of once more’s.
Oh god, the guilt of asking is brutal.
But these words have just quieted the demons
And I wish to dream now.