Death of a Nihilist [poetry]

08. quagmire

everybody at these poetry readings,

are a little sick in the head,

the heart.

they take meds to numb the pain

their apathetic parents and terrible inexistent lovers

couldn't rub away.

they scrawl on the smooth underside of their arms

until the words replace their paper thin skin,

absorb into the tender, bleeding internal organs within.

many wear their incoherency like an armour that did little to protect their fragile egos,

others tear at the dog-eared pages of their lined self

hoping to find a definition amongst the mediocre vagueness of aspirations and ambitions.

some come to these poetry readings to sightsee the mass graveyards,

the vast burial sites of unremarkable, unvarying hopes, dreams and prayers, often go

unrecorded in history books.

one or two may attend these readings, no other reasons than to seek death.

for nothing quite makes you crave a good, old grave, more than the sight of dozens of adults

affirming each other of their sadness, their happiness, their anger, their fears, like infants.

these poetry readings were that way

because everybody there was a little sick

in the head, the heart. in themselves.

⸻

quagmire: an area of miry or boggy ground whose surface yields under the tread; a bog

prompt: (as) medicine