The Paperbag Ritual

Surrounded by concrete,
Frantic licks of cynical delirium,
The paperbag gapes at me,
Akin to a cavernous chasm,
My head's tucked inside,
The tape circumvents frenetically around the boundary,
And then,
Everything breathes,
In a cryptic, withheld wave,
Seeking succour,
But as we speak,
This frail black heaves,
Sticking against my protracted gasps,
Ah my throat's claiming voice again,
But the paper wears thin,
The air punctures the surface,
Pushing out a slimy concoction of pungent tears,
And decaying sanity,
Look how purpose has killed platitude,
One shaken glance at the moist,
Parting grin on the sheet,
Only to realise,
That failure now too has abandoned me,

...But this has got to be it,
Rinse and recede,
Rupture the grimace until,
The lacerations mould my face into a facsimile,
Of every word left unsaid,

A blunt lurch,
Interrupts this surge of noise,
Appearing to be swarming up behind my eyes,
The quiet furtively fuels a desire,
So obdurate,
As the edges drown into clots that retch,
The adrenaline rushes,
Cascades into this hollow ditch in my chest,
The fingertips go limp,
Owing to the stranglehold of fear,
They say the heart is a mirror,
So I always let the darkness claw its way up,
And drive its forceps-like incisors into my veins,
Now there's no light,
For the image of this decrepit coward to manifest itself,

How I'd kneel here before,
With a preponderance of deficiencies,
And the contours that separated it,
From my diluting facade,
Were blurred out in the pursuit,
Of manufactured happiness..

But my scars are itching around the orifice,
Craving to be dismembered,
From the memories enshrined,
The knife traces my soul,
Through the galore of wounds,
And stains that now adorn,
Where once lay,
Now reduced to squalor,
The blessed burden I carried,
Within the confines of me,
Within flesh and bones,
The cure is in the pain,
All this time,
The cure was this blade,
Escape has arrived.

What have I done?
A sharp final gasp pushes through,
The warmth is leaving,
With the transient state of this agony,
I've grown familiar with,
But a new misery has now found me..

Last words,
Do they matter?
Do they care?
And whilst descending where death shall greet me,
I can't help but draw letters around that,
Miniscule, blinkering aura getting out of reach,
I can't help but say I'll miss you,
Our cumbersome walks on those winter sunsets,
Palm in palm,
And you'd count my little fingers,
And caress my ailing head,
Your embrace,
I always believed would save me,
From the wrath of these days,
I knew you dreaded the same,
Especially those,
When you'd realise you won't see me again,
So I am sorry for what I became,
For I spat in the face of our promise,
But just so you know,
If it berets the doubt and sorrow,
That in the silence that engulfed,
Every sound,
Every sight,
Every memory,
I found tranquillity,
I found you.

Wished you wouldn't remember me,
But never let go,
Wished you'd hate me,
But..
Oh,nevermind.