56 minutes

[jomaraubat]

OK, don't get all worried. This was written last year - it's just takes me a while to get poems finished. I'm sure that someday, I'll write a poem about something else but me...


56 minutes

it’s dark inside and
i’m downloading
images of suicide.
worlds of suffering
a few hundred pixels
square. some are
the simplest line
drawings - stick
figures approaching
oblivion, staring over
the edges of square
cliffs, farewelling
hope or seeking
peace, and i wonder
how it would be to
leap into that glorious
flight of abandon.

or perhaps I’d
prefer to be like
the fat girl, staring
at the gun in her
hand like it’s a
cream puff that
she shouldn’t eat,
or the teenage
lovers, naked in
their bath, resting
gently in each other.
sunlight pours through
the bathroom window
behind them, failing
to illuminate the
blue/black bath,
their pale skin, the
crimson water.

reds and blacks
predominate,
blood flows claret
dark or shocking
crimson. red is the
online metaphor
of choice. there
is a wrist, sliced
like a peach; skin
peeling back to
reveal . . . what?
there’s a search
going on; a search
for different meanings
beneath skin, for
something better.

and it says
something
about my
state of mind,
that the
overwhelming
impression of
these images
is
beautiful
beautiful
beautiful.

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