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A Poetry tDrop
by Wetdryvac
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Confessions
May 3, 1997
they wanted me to tell them everything
back then when I didn't even know who or why I was
they told me I had all the answers to cure myself
that I could figure out all the complex notions of the world
sooner than they could teach me
They taught me to hate
the world, them, myself
Once upon a way back then
I found that there were ways
means of self destruction
beyond the classical exorcism of personality
offered - even advertised
glorified - through the constant barrage
electronic black white television broadcasts
black and white
because
we were too poor to purchase that complex new Zenith model
claiming cable readiness
because I was and am a system
of on and off equations
with no in between most of the time
black and white
because that's what the world was supposed to come down to -
simplicity
they wanted me to expose all my black --
for intervention
where I was not wanted
for evil - for black I as wrong
white good
confessions
cleanse myself become
something
other
back then
even through the layering in of hate
I thought perhaps they were right
I have become -
not what they expected
there is a bitter cliché
called bitter taste to go
with ravaged thoughts and pussing words
spewed forth and called clean
there's a focusing down
that goes along with this
an annihilation of what I've been informed was my soul
sometimes all that's left now
strained-against-the-strappings rage
I can't do any more than paste out
with that veneer of civilization
they kept ranting incoherently about
in the back
of this half way to sullen mind
is a chair
stacked moments ago upon dozens of others
plastic and identical now - for this memory - it's taken its place
flush against the dusty white concrete
sitting here I can recall
the pressing in I feel
as it shows me again that fitting to form
was never intended by the manufacturers
"Make it look nice but you've go Ht to keep
the kids awake"
"Can't have 'em too sure of 'emselves
they'll fall asleep"
and it was so
now the chair is part of me
I'm part of it
wide awake watching
this one's mouth move
"Why won't you behave like the other kids"
silent
because I am not them
"Why won't you sit through
the methodology
our progressive system"
refuse to allow myself
rage
poisoned by your ethics
stamped case mass production
another lot here another
and more in line
"Why won't you just sit still for your classes
regurgitate these things we try to teach you"
these things you hold dear like my silence
are alien to me
your things are not mine - I know no kinship to you
"We are so many more than you"
in the end they beat me down
four years of my life
I sat within
brick walls on
chairs made for looks
knowing answers
I couldn't voice
showing up the other kids
begets ostracism
once one is one
twice two
is four four fours is sixteen
and on - progression
oft exemplified in later years
with rabbits
I was in third
grade timing my answers to their pride
and retribution
accepting their tests
on paper and playground
becoming what
I was not
four years of paraffin conformity
slipping through the grillwork classroom after classroom
they said I was better
running deep
saved more than just the Tridents in those days of rank
formation and file
from what I'm not quite sure
becoming?
I became what they wanted me to be
everything they ever wondered about
I've cut out my sole
possession watched it laid waste
handed back delicate
ribbons from it brushing against the floor
they told me
I was a new person
back then I though they might be right
Now I'm sure
In the end they beat me down
In the end
Rudyard Kipling
still speaks in my head
his works I read and cherished
works of devotion and arrogance
works of intellect
run spot run
his works told me of a place beyond myself
of poetry in motion
the flow of words
taunting
loving
all one
run spot run
see spot's runs
spot's proper noun lies dormant
in this mind
no longer survives
those happy children's books made by and for adults
he's weaving cartoon tales and lies
cut and glued up to the cement
where the plastic chairs live
for every creation there is destruction
for every destruction a new machine is born
and they told me that I had become just what they wished
all their students would strive to be
"Model advanced child
high placement seems
a
bit
disoriented
much of the time
all the smart boys do that some"
If
I'd only exerted
for those higher grades
C
for every machine there is soldered in a sequence
of programmed motions
counters to events
responses to the known
question
for every mechanical part there is a stress within
system a balance that must be reached
lest the whole
ravel and disassociate
and in the end they beat me down
like the walls of Jericho I fell
pounded to the call of
their ram's horns
late at night I've listened to their words shuffling
coughing back and forth in sleepless anticipation
next
motive series
next motive
series
sometimes the stresses are more than a body can accept
and the walls came tumbling down
come tells us your troubles little one
tells us your troubles - a present a present - I stole from them
they whispered Golem Golem in the dark - thief come
tells us your trials
it will make you well
I spoke softly troubles upon troubles
but I want to know - was that what they wanted of me?
in that childhood I was I can't remember
if they listened to the answers or if ?
the questions were only part of an ordinal sequence
twice too is also twice too
I can't recall their wording
just that in their I perfect eyes
I was not quite what they were looking for
slightly squeezing through the crevices in the mold
my thought processes had become
not what I was
not what I once was
there are more of me than I can count in here now
contradictory indications fading like colors in an acid bath
which one shall I be today - carbolic picric lysergic?
I ask them what do you feel
but they paraphrase the question back at me
so I tell the truth I've been secondary
I feel nothing
seems these days have found me more mechanical than human
nothing wrong with the spinning gears when they're not inside my head
seems I'm smooth and I'm what I do never what I've been
but I just do by utility - that is what I am
I asked them what do you feel
but they felt so angry they couldn't answer
metal structure's a device an analogue replica A of the mind
paranoia's a nothingness - everything falling in about my ears
everyone's an emptiness vast gulf from them to here
utility is getting done - what must be done what will be done
anger is a burial ground for them for me for years
they went against the known response
turned the question inside itself
they asked me what I was today
I said getting done
utility
mechanical
something human lost
out amongst the gears
ripping friction of running
without oil
survival
I've gotten done
mostly
they wanted me to tell them everything
I can't
recall if they wanted to hear me
in the answer
if they wanted a solution
their sociological equations
kept slipping
but in my answers
I have slipped into something dead
tarnished by aggression
by hate
but something vastly shiny all the same
or all the same to me
still I can't recall
you asked me just now for a confession
title to an interesting dissertation upon this or that imagined malpractice
some story that: will titillate your sensations
guilt of voyeuristic glee from atrocity
real or faked
stagnation
just cause it's the harshest word I can think of
at age seven
I fought a short failed battle over
masturbation
my usage of the word in a sentence which I thought
had to do with table tennis
now I've got no
innocence
laid claim to darker things that basic self
abuse
I am not what I am
that child I was got closed away
shot up screaming
that differences must mean something
somewhere along the beaten track
confessions then convulsions
got mixed in
one with the other
flinching this way and up down out of control
give me something real
not an essay in three part harmony
about some poor bastard
cursed away one aspect of his innocence
filching scratch 'n sniff stickers
grade five Mt Vernon elementary school
and in the end they beat me down-
"What are you now
no longer one part of what we are
where else would you like to be
looking but up basking
the yellow glow
the yellow light"
tell - tell - tell - me everything about myself
maybe I can tell you all about myself
if I can find which one of me you know
you wanted confessions
maybe if I can
dig in deep enough
I can slip beyond what I've done
I can find what I'm looking for
maybe I'll share
maybe I'll just
be selfish
any answers in here for myself?
hoard them
like cash gold sex what have you
any societal term
for these things pleasure
vices sciences we should not have
and in the end I looked around the broken ground where I'd been standing
blood of mine enemies making mud of the earth
listened and heard nothing but me inside me and closed it all away
saw a broken corpse of what once was me
face turned down in the mud
leaned back against the concrete and turned me over
but I'd fought too hard
one can only find so much inside one's own corpse
I brushed the mud from across my own face
cast aside respect for the dead then lifted the skin from across my eyes
looked into my own eyes and saw them
capital them
once upon a time
I started writing about the things I saw
in myself
in my world
then never stopped
once upon
I think it was a Thursday
snow falling outside my window
I
stared
stared wondering why the library books
I'd returned
never got dropped
from the charges on my bill
until I stole
from the library that Thursday
to return them yet again
mechanical
like their system of returns
and once and
zeroing my face
looked back at me from the darkened window
like staring into a blank electric screen
perhaps I simply
was not any more
plucked by this and that rule
ruled by
many other trainings
less than myself
I returned the library books again
Friday -- again
Monday
ways around systems
wondering if one was too
looking for loopholes in myself
in them and everything
Friday I got the bill again
Sartre was right absurd
existential but
that was wrong somehow
perhaps a
confession - but I don't no
the me that you know has everything to do - and nothing
with the me that I know
five days ago today
I couldn't stop
reciting not quite screaming a poem
that was a song
poor man just looked at me questioning why I'd got this down
and not some James Tate construction
assignment I'd been to memorize
I knew less than he did - aggression
you can
I can
attack people with words
with weapons
focused blows
whatever
attack
I am one
maybe an attack
against all those things
I don't comprehend
all those things
that make me
confess
purge
they told me I'd get better
the system is a half circle now
not what I was E
not what I was
waxing into its own power
may be its own destruction
that new replaced faster
than I can grow into
I am told that there's
nothing
I can't be if I just
put
my mind to it
corollary
nothing I can't destroy myself
you
my system of equations
if I'm not careful about these things
to put my mind to
and maybe since I can't gauge your reactions
I'm listening to my own
a victory of sorts
better than I had before
maybe Zen
it just is - means it's not too
all at the same time
but some connections seem to matter less
now the psychologists were wrong
the teachers were dead and wrong
the philosophers just dead
deep inside the confession lies nothing I know
knew - wondered was ever what I thought
it might be
jumble in a
tangle of ganglia scrambled - and still it's a definite thing
something I can reach right out and bite
back before back then
everything they said was true
before I knew what they were
or that I might not exist
there
was a safety in not
knowing - before - or growing into
knowing as suddenly as eve grew into sin
once I was normal
before I'd even heard of the bloody garden
before I knew anything I had
no basis for comparison
neither happy nor unhappy blank
twice I had
second thoughts about this whole notion of personal existence
but upon further contemplation
decided that one might be the only chance
canceling out these second
thoughts
I am not
what I once was - ignorant vacant empty
I am not what I want to be - singular contiguous whole
I - just wonder confession confession
what is this system of destruction
where I can hurt people without meaning to
and the people I most wish to hurt
are held from me by moral disapproval
adjustment by force
now I'm not
normal anything but progression
anything less than everything
I don't really want what you say I am
rebel spitting in faces with words
just am
a hole in the progression
enough?
and stop
but I never could
really stop
gotten too used to this
obedience of orders conflicting
an insatiable desire to desecrate everything
every piece they said was virtuous anyway
no matter that
every now and then
they even espouse majesty
the views I might think to hold dear
no sanctity too sacred for them
for me
it's
just a case of breathing
taking in the dust of a concrete wall
syncing my lips to the barrage of their right ways
and maybe this doesn't even confess
doesn't answer those little purging urges
we're all Supposed to get once in a while
maybe reactionism wasn't the answer to anything at all
yet I wonder -
like the glazed face in the glass -
if I'm not anything but these reactions
confession
spilled my guts
so long ago and listened
how they went dripping down
maybe now I can
go
back then they wanted me to tell them everything
and in the telling I found what I was to loose
my everything but
predators wanted more
I killed away their views
in protection of my self
made me anew
time after time I am
becoming may be - we're all
becoming something new
by our
confessions
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With thanks to the good folks at Hackers.Town for answering the very
n00best of questions, with the following people politely [REDACTED].
May your time go in a manner you consent to.
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