choking

I wish I had a better title... numbness laced with that good ole' feeling of impending doom, followed by the very situation darkly anticipated

A sinkhole in the desert--

sand pours in from all sides,

disappears into darkness.

Chipped pocked walls ripple with beige, 

while few dry and scraggly weeds cling to rock. 

The sun bakes loaves of stone, 

but cannot satiate deep ravenous shadows. 

Perhaps a bird or two swoops in and out, 

visiting homes precariously nestled on sheer rocky rims. 

It is dry dark hot air that cracks your lips, 

the powdered crumbling exhale 

of an empty cigar tube, 

the lonesome freefall of a gravel chip,

skittered past a precipice. 

I stand, you stand, at the bleak rim and realize too late--

watch peaty boiling rock swell,

bubble over, crusting and cracking, 

belched from bowels of spent sere earth,

spill across drought-ridden fields, 

dead, indifferent kindling-- the scape is transformed.

Blank prosaic canvas torched by miasmatic burgundy, 

Parched crabbed indifference flares a fiery Cerberus 

A black torrent, mortal consumption 

engulfs saturates squelches from the dirt.

I am just as empty,

but now the reek of looming reaper 

floats alongside ashy nauseating motes of panic 

the desert is bogged with hot oil 

suffocating tar sucking you into the ground 

cooking the flesh of your (my) calves as you (we) 

sink deeper into an immovable plaster of stinking sticky darkness 

and you are (I am) choking on terror and hot rubber porridge, 

lumps of gelatinous promise catch on my ribs 

and drip and stretch through my throat 

gumming up my lungs and 

God I can’t breathe 

I can’t breathe 

I can’t breathe anymore--

Author's Note

February 2, 2021 at 2:33am

More vent poetry— happy to hear thoughts; is it impactful at all? I know it's not an easy read, esp. first time through, so not sure how that will affect things..

I don't wish the feeling I was trying to capture on anyone— but if you are one of those that can relate, I'd hope this could help you feel a bit more understood. If you're one of the unlucky ones, with parents or friends who dismiss what you're struggling with— I'd hope this paints a portrait of just how extreme things can get.

Reviews

[Namus]

whatsoeuer thou sayest shall... okay, I'm not Spenser, but your poetry even in its prose form reminds me of him invariably. So lemme still give a shot:

whatsoeuer thou sayest shall of Truth fall,
unto the chasm that squirm and writhe
and reaffirm beauty that scarce dieth,
for it is not all, it is not all.
Beneath the ugly, under the rotten, in its heart
there lives the poet, lives beauty, lives art.

Okay, I left off the sayeth and the shalt in the middle, for I got a little carried away. Now I doubt if what I wrote is at all decipherable? 🤔

[Allie Esora]

I am honestly a bit surprised that someone responded at all, and am so happy that you were the one to do so, for the method you employed was more than decipherable— it was the perfect way to reply, in that I can’t imagine another note touching my heart so well. The necessary care with which you chose your words helped to affirm their genuinity.

In no way could I be considered well-versed when it comes to Spenserian-style, but personally I think your shot was a good one :)

Truly, thank you so much!!

[Namus]

Hey, thank! I really thought I was making a fool of myself (that was intended, in case it lightens the mood).. and de nada, de nada, don't thank me. it was a pleasure reading you.