The Stalker

rage, rage, rage
against the sludge
that collects inside,
up against the walls of the
brain and within the crevices
of the skeleton.

sometimes I wonder if
I’m a high-functioning
depressive, like I’m
chauffeuring around a
hearse, propping up the
corpse for work, school,
friendships and maintaining
the optical illusion of
adulthood.

but I think eventually
others notice the smell
of the corpse, they sense
the sludge congealing
around me. And I think,
maybe will-power is enough to
get through the sludge.

Like, I’m in a hole and
if I just use enough
mental power, then it’ll act
as the rope to get me out,
but I don’t realize that the
rope is forever shorter than the
hole is deep.

but I rage, rage, rage
against the sludge, the
nagging feeling that
never seems to go away,
highs and lows, middles,
so I function, so I play
the adulthood game.

sometimes I want to litter
the walls with that rage,
express it and push back
against the dread, but the rage
is a rock in the hole;
I can throw it up,
but it’ll come back down.

rage, rage, rage
sludge, sludge, sludge

(I had bits of this poem in my mind last night when I couldn’t sleep, then another image came to my head. One of my all-time favorite films and absolutely my all-time favorite horror films is the original Halloween. Laurie Strode, the protagonist, is at her class in high school and she looks out the window to see Michael Myers behind a car just looking at her. She looks away, looks back and he’s gone. That’s kinda how I picture sometimes or try to conceptualize what I had in mind with this poem, like it’s stalking you, always there, no matter what. Just an image to play with, if you’re more into images as representative than words.)