i’m smoking
cigarettes
i can’t
really afford
-
i may look
really
you know
like
interested
-
but i’m
the chairman
of the bored
-
inhaling noxious fumes
i don’t need
ignoring all the warnings
i won’t heed
-
got a nagging fuckin cough
i can’t kick
addicted
to the products
that keep me calm
and make me sick
-
sucking on poisons
fed to me
by machines
-
surfing semi-tangible realities
offered
in teasing
fleeting dreams
-
and the nothing
that i seek
it hides in sight
between the breath
of silent screams
About the Creator
Bren
"It's just a token of my extreme!" - Frank Zappa
"Cause it's all in the heat of the moment It's all in the pain!!!" - Devin Townsend
Centre Stage with the wonderful Heather Hubler
I'm writing it out not acting in doubt!
I wanted to title this something different, but worried that my chosen title might cause problems entering the United States in the future so this is the new title. It's the greatest title. No one has ever written a title better than this. (All titles unrelated to content).
Let me be honest. I am finding this difficult. Now, I like a challenge, a stretch, a bit of an obstacle course. “Write about the decline of the British Empire in the form of a narrative poem in which your protagonist is an artichoke” I read, and flex my fingers. “Write a haiku to evoke the sensation of sibilance using only the first half of the alphabet.” “Well”, I think to myself, “this should be fun.” But “write about a system that isn’t working”? A system that isn’t working? Now? In 2026? ONE system? My favourite system that isn’t working? The sexiest system that isn’t working? The one giving me the most angst day to day? The one giving me the most existential dread? I am, as I say, finding this difficult. I will own that I have contemplated writing a thousand words on why the steady “all on” setting on my fairy lights is the EIGHTH of seven options which must be sequentially activated to get there, because that is a system that some fool came up with and it definitely doesn’t work, and now who is paying the price, eh? But how can I write about my fairy lights when…. When…. When….
By Hannah Moore5 days ago in Humans
Comments (1)
This has a gritty, honest rhythm to it. That line about being the "chairman of the bored" perfectly describes that restless feeling where you are doing something you hate just to have something to do with your hands. It is a vicious cycle to be addicted to the very thing that is making you feel worse, but you nailed how that "calm" is sometimes the only thing that matters in the moment.