mental health

The entirety of the poem Muse with music inspired by it at the end in bass guitar and piano.

Enjoy.

Word(s) Up, G:

Muse

I.
Lock-jawed, broken-socket
brain-dead mind jock,
are you lost?
Ah, yes,
we know what you want.

We know everything about you.

II.
Help me fight it, please,
I don't know what else to do,
I'm trying to be a solid wall
against the shattered remnants
of an adolescent subconscious

And it's not working.
This temptation of
incompletion, and
the fear of insubordination
are two overwhelming tides against my foundation.

And I'm sorry if it seems
hopeless and absurd and ridiculous
but
at this point,
it is.

III.
So, cherry-blossomed word-spinner,
how much love would you prefer?
Is he real(he doesn't know)?
Was he then(he isn't sure)?
Just sit back and the silence will speak for you.

He's changing, you know.
Changing to be the person we want him to be.
Slowly, so slowly, little things, little changes are

1.
There's the lick and burn of copper and rust
in my cheek
and on my tongue.
It bleeds when I talk.
How appropriate.

II.
The surgery has made me a bitter man,
words have caused me to realize that.
The swelling apparently made me a monster,
but I already knew that
from you.

"I must be a bloody mess."
I remember gurgling to the nurse,
laid out hard, awake but not, numb and blank in my empty space.
"Oh no, of course not," she whispered
as she wiped the crimson from my neck and face.

Bloody mess.
Good summation.
Alone.
So alone.
At least we're alone.

Three.
My mother, saint that she is,
insisted on taking care of the little cousins today.
They came in and saw me at my desk
and as I turned to face them
they simply ran away.

The inner turmoil has bubbled to the surface.
The conflict has become the man.
I can't make out just who or what I've become.
I don't know who or what I am.
Can I change this? Please?

I.
Lock-jawed, broken-socket
brain-dead mind jock,
are you lost?
Ah, yes,
we know what you want.

We know everything about you.

II.
Help me fight it, please,
I don't know what else to do,
I'm trying to be a solid wall
against the shattered remnants
of an adolescent subconscious

And it's not working.
This temptation of
incompletion, and
the fear of insubordination
are two overwhelming tides against my foundation.

And I'm sorry if it seems
hopeless and absurd and ridiculous
but
at this point,
it is.

III.
So, cherry-blossomed word-spinner,
how much love would you prefer?
Is he real(he doesn't know)?
Was he then(he isn't sure)?
Just sit back and the silence will speak for you.

He's changing, you know.
Changing to be the person we want him to be.
Slowly, so slowly, little things, little changes are
shaping, twisting, evolving
his mind and his body and his soul.

To become me.

Best leave him be, yes?

I enter that blank white room in my conscience filled with figures and file cabinets.

He's shifting around papers at one of the desks.

"Geist."

"Hrm."

"Hey."

"Go away."

"We need to talk."

"I said go away."

"Look, some-"

"Are you fucking deaf? Leave me alone."

I grab the shoulder of his trenchcoat and turn him to face me. "Fuck you and your loneliness, I have to talk to you."

Quiet.

"Alright. I need you to decide, right now, who's going to run this show."

"What?"

"Who am I? Me or you?"

"Me, of course."

"Out of best interests. For both of us."

He's thinking again. He rests his chin on his palm. "I don't know."

"You used to. We used to."

"I know, but things have gotten complicated, right?"

"Yes."

"And you're still mulling over that damn conference."

"Yeah."

"So, what? You want me to do what?"

"Either assert your position or get the hell out."

"I'm not leavin'."

"So you're dominant now?"

Twitch. Wrench. Breathe. Start again.

This isn't what was supposed to happen.

Twitch. Once. Twice. Over and over.

Love, ha, love, love, love is so informal, so wrong on so many levels for so many yet so right!

Wrench, yelp, scream, untwist.

Stop talking and laughing and poking and scraping and cutting and tearing and killing me. All of you. Every single one of you. Go away.

Lyrics from "1,000,000" loop like a broken record:
"Put the gun,
In my mouth,
Close your eyes,
blow my fucking brains out,
pretty patterns,
on the floor-"

Breathe. Hard. Harder. Suck the air from the earth. Throw it all back up. Count the teeth as they tumble out.

Is this my hand running through my hair? Was it my idea to write these words? How can my purpose for life be my own?

Geist: writer. Skulker. Diseased. Opinionated. Ignored.

Nick: lover. Talker. Healthy. Agreeable. Heard.

(Warning:
This is not for the faint of heart.
-Geist)

I'm alone.

I'm in a badly lit room, the cramping desk I'm contained within a single filled unit of an otherwise empty grid. The shades are down, the fuzzy glow of the projector has long faded away, and the light pouring in from the hallway makes little dent in the shadow. This is where I will work, I think to myself.

My eyes warily make their way around the classroom. The hand-drawn maps and old propaganda posters, improperly pinned and drooping sadly from the walls, are barely visible. The chatting socialites who stroll by the single door, left open by the last students to leave, pass by without acknowledgment of my presence, or even, more surprisingly, the lack of any other. Even the teacher, the one constant in this little world, the one rule that should never change, isn't here this afternoon.

All the better, though.

I have a pen.

I have paper.

That's all that matters right now.