Overt and Compelling Digressions

“I stand amid the roar

of a surf-tormented shore,

and I hold within my hand

grains of the golden sand.”

- "A Dream Within a Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe.

My thoughts rage savagely,

continually crashing against

the plexiglass walls of my mind,

repeating,

repeating

what I have told myself so many times before.

I want to drill

a hole in my pondering temple

and watch the unheard words pour,

as I stand amid the roar.

I’m immersed in my own reality,

a tragedy of my own invention,

conjuring up a magic worry

from my top hat of imagination.

I reach into the tumultuous waves of my unconscious,

fingers sinking down to the ocean floor

grabbing handfuls of self-loathing

rummaging,

looking for the key to my lock of misery, hearing the stridor

of [my] surf-tormented shore.

I am stuck in a narcissistic nightmare

of escapism,

clinging to the cliff of my sanity,

fingernails breaking on its rocky surface.

My emotions are more twisted

then each strand

of a rope’s knotted noose.

I scribble lists to quiet myself internally,

every one of my moves, always planned.

And I hold within my hand

a pen,

spilling inky black subconscious

on bright white sheets of routine,

repeating,

repeating

what my eddying contemplations demand.

I watch my clock obsessively

shoes ticking away against the floor, until

my hourglass shatters, spilling tanned

grains of the golden sand.

- V.B.B.