November Shame

I have exhausted all trash TV,
Drowned my sorrows in reality TV
And sobbed and smiled
And blushed and cursed my own
Lack of inspiration,
This mental dead-end, this physical knot
I am tied in, my mind a bundle
Of messy wires and short circuits,
Entangled chains of hormones and feelings
that have
Messed themselves up
so bad,
I have bombed myself down
With colourful nothingness,
cheerful celebrations of everything
That doesn’t last for long,
I have numbed myself with dramatic
Noise, the banging sound of
Feeling void, the echo at the bottom
Of this emotional sink,
I have left the tap running
And everything I feel is washing itself
Down the drain, down the sink,
I am not cleansing myself,
I am bleaching myself, I am bleaching myself clean
While washing these dirty white plates,
Smoothening the knives,
Scrubbing this glass clean
As I stare at my screen
And into the eyes of this unknown person, this stranger occupying my screen,
As I stare into this shallow glass,
Someone else’s crushed dreams,
this otherworldliness,
This alien, abstract, clumsy world
Of glitter and fame, glitter and shame,
Scrubbing myself
Clean, sweating within, somehow
Feeling less lonely watching
These messily crafted caricatures
Of humans that somehow
Look more normal than me,
More real than the
Friends who have ghosted me
One time too many,
Those who loved me once, a little,
Too much and not at all.
I watch the clock tick,
This god damn Sunday has been
Killed scrolling through memes,
This deafening silence, this drudgery, followed by
Laughing at terrible jokes,
Everything is visual these days,
These days,
endlessly
Searching for watchable scenes,
Artful acts that will light up my
Brain synapses, get me to think,
To think through, to think, I think, I think that November,
This month of near-winter and grief,
Of collecting one’s thoughts, of
Coming to terms with the darkness
And the loneliness and
The masterful phobias within, the fear of giving in
To hope so much it leaves you
Begging, next year, at your
knees, I think that November is the month I’m finally grey and free,
An angry teenage song,
Unfinished pre-pubescent angst,
This screeching wind of adulthood
That’s trying to mask itself
As casual, cool breeze.
November shame, I am finally
Me, no more hiding,
No more masking the truth,
I am finally me,
At least
I am finally
Coming
Clean.