“Sookie-La-La”

Not (just) the face of a mummy’s boy or a sookie-la-la,

But the face of a desperately fearful lamb,

Approaching the slaughter.

“Can you help me?” He cries.

And indeed she can’t - not really anyway,

And a fat, juicy tear rolls down his face,

It’s thick like those FAKE looking ones that they

Inject on the actor’s eyelids in the movies:

Ready?! One, two, three - BLINK!

Who buys that shit?!

Except these aren’t fake, instead,

Unimaginable anguish continues to rapidly eat at him,

from the inside/out.

“What do you want me to do?” His mum asks.

“What did I use to be like before all this happened?” Is his stunted response.

“What did I do? What did I like?”

“Help me remember,” he said.

Was it amnesia? - he thought..

It was after all a forgotten time, as if it was never his life entirely,

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but it felt like a past life,

Yet, now stuck in some kind of other-world with no identity to speak of.

He couldn’t really remember or understand who he was.

To pinch a quote from Lynch, it was like he was “in this dream place”,

And frustratingly so he couldn’t think his way out.

All he started to at once comprehend was that all he did in his old life -

was to analyse and critique everything back then like some sort of game.

He seems to remember elements of this, but..

His inability to rationalise now was confusing as hell!

“It’s as if I’m now disabled,” he’d said recently to his family.

I can’t control my thoughts or emotions,

Someone needs to shut the gate from

this entrenched darkness and

Most black of delusions and help me learn to re-experience

the outside world again, he’d thought.

Locked in, or if outside, a wobbly-walk,

strategically placed in the in-between,

So that all felt unreal.

“What are some funny memories you can tell me?”

“Well, she said, “how about Grandma and Tata?”

“Yes please.” So she related one as he lay down in his bed,

like a kid about to be read their favourite story.

It was a humorous one,

“Uh I remember that,” he murmured back, “You’ve told me that before.”

Momentary forgetfulness and a strange

Fleeting sensation of warmth, just being -

Yet it would not last long.

Desperate to find his way back into the real world,

But free from its enveloping of shattered illusions,

After all, the world is full of such things,

Why can’t they see the lie?

So he stayed here for quite a bit longer,

Before beginning to learn to hope once again.