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My Forewarning
They say to live like it is your final day
But I was dying inside living that way
My final day meant consuming a lake or two
My final day meant me detaching from you
I attempted to drink myself into living more in the now
But my woes still found a way to disrupt me somehow
Living in the now meant being dead in the morning
Living in the now meant ignoring my own forewarning
Needing this false elixir to live was killing me gradually inside
Yet part of me wants to return to it so for a little I can again hide
Back then I cut off the ghastly, but I also chopped off the wonderful
To make my way there again would leave me vacant and pitiful
Yet lately I find a stronger urge to once more drown and depart
Negate this great accomplishment, and erase my head and heart
I’m scared of losing this struggle, and I’m afraid of quitting this fight
I must keep my tormented eyes focused on the flickering lights
A mind that’s clear
But relapse I fear
Nauseated to face a society of so much buried rape and molestation
A mind that’s now all here
But sometimes I still want the fog to cover the clear
I badly want to escape this defiled, commercialized civilization
A mind that’s clear
Often wishing for this perverse reality to disappear
A mind that’s clear
A mind shoveling fears on top of fears
I admit that I sometimes want my end to be near
They say to live with an undiluted, unsullied optimism
But reality is often rooted in the grimy muck of pessimism
I’m once again armed with a systematic, piercing mind
But I’m fighting the want to go back to the fictitious to unwind
It is difficult to see this foul mess we live in and not want to run
It can be a forgettable, hateful existence to loathe almost everyone
Countless phony, self-involved imbeciles who shouldn’t have been born
I don’t feel most of them are worth my time in this rotting decline anymore
Over the deaths of most I most certainly would not need to mourn
The majority of them are in this herd of lies camouflaging their internal whores
Back into the fog I do not want to return
But for the surreal I so strongly do yearn
My fixated mind keeps whispering deceit into my ears
And sometimes I still want the fog to cover the clear
I know in this life there are things that are extraordinary
Yet out of the dazed haze things can feel too ordinary
Mother Nature’s nature is a harsh and yet mysterious perfection
But unnatural humanity’s trail is covered by waste and destruction
A mind that’s clear
But I don’t know how long I can continue to take it
Relapse I so fear
Wanting to abandon myself more than I want to admit
I know I am very strong, but right now I feel very weak
I know I have much to live for, but yet life seems so bleak
I want my life to feel continually surreal
I want to cloak myself under the unreal
A mind that’s clear
But I’m enraged and out of place in this atmosphere
I want things to feel surreal
Things can start to disintegrate when life turns real
I want it all to feel surreal
And in my youth that I could feel
I want my life to be once again surreal
Too often only sipping self-desertion could make that real
Intoxicated
Removed me to the land of the sedated
Intoxicated
Woke up to feeling withered and degraded
Intoxicated
But at least for a moment I lived in the surreal
Letting me displace much of the hostile real
Right now I want to shelter myself in the surreal
Its deceptive whispers I now can almost taste
At the moment I want to say goodbye to the real
But if I continue to listen I’ll surely be laid to waste
An obsession erasing hours while teeming with ways to interfere
Yet sometimes I still want that fog to return to cover the clear
Innocence is a forgotten falsehood once this world is understood
Inner peace is a lie once enough time and thought has gone by
Looking at what we have done makes me want to succumb
Looking at what we are doing makes me want to be numb
They like to hear the sound of their own insignificant voices
They like to scream at others for their own egocentric choices
Our concrete eliminates beauty
Our smoke dims the sun
Our trash is floating in the water
Sometimes I don’t like anyone
So many of them are propped up, lazy, and not really living
They are just fine with no self-worth and merely existing
And on this finite world like parasites they keep sucking
And on this breaking world too many of them are flooding
Out in public all I see are wretched beasts branded with mundane names
All of them are a part of the ruination, but most will not take any blame
All the unimportant drama in their lives that are so purposeless
All their pointless, false battles and uninformed, biased arguments
The man-made, false Gods and insane, illogical religions
Bible thumping imbeciles and their brainwashed conditions
Covering the world with our animalistic bloodshed
We all stink and are programmed to mindlessly breed
The majority of them stupid, comatose, and far too overfed
The majority of them selfish and all with the instinct of greed
Immeasurable, misanthropic hate thrives inside of me
We destroy Earth’s majesty with our society of travesty
I don’t want them around me to cause me to quickly boil
I don’t want them around me to make my head slowly spoil
They make me want to return to the fog containing the surreal
They make me want to avoid their true selves that they conceal
They make me want to give up on this me and give in to the recluse
They make me want to embrace this bewitching substance I used to abuse
Sustained recovery feeling impossible when everything and everyone I see through
Sustained sobriety feeling cripplingly burdensome with my putrid, furious world-view
Everywhere with people in sight I see more to detest
Every corner of my brain seems to find unsettling unrest
In this trial of nightmares I have to focus on the glimmers
They call out to me lovingly from the never-ending void of black
If I choose to sedate myself they will quiet and become dimmer
To that place of unaware carelessness I should never go back
My reflection was just a shadow in cracked, overcast mirror
But lately I am yearning for the fog to again cover the clear
Far down inside I know I should never go back
I will end up being overtaken by this void of black
And before these neglected candles will go out they will first become dimmer
By returning to the lie of the fog of the surreal I slay my magnificent glimmers
Seeking illusionary innocence is not needed to still feel alive
Forget the myth of inner peace and keep the will to survive
Staring directly at the truth of humanity makes me want to succumb
Looking towards the frightening future makes me want to be numb
But in this darkness there are lights that glow
And there is still hope in this midnight sorrow
In this sober life I can still find dreamlike magic
In this somber world I can look beyond the tragic
I don’t have to be in this smog of constant dishonesty
I can still find the worthwhile that resides around me
Absorb the picturesque and purge the grotesque
The sound of the breeze through the statuesque trees
Absorb the picturesque and purge the grotesque
The smell of burning wood with an orange sunset
Absorb the picturesque and purge the grotesque
The crisp green of spring and a different mindset
Absorb the picturesque and purge the grotesque
The chill of autumn blanketed by falling yellow and red
Cherish the few who matter and have not been discarded
I covered the clear to block out the anger and fear
But I also deleted myself from all that I hold so dear
Experiencing and no longer just drifting
Reviving candles whose flames went missing
There is much I still find to live for
And a handful of people I still adore
I cannot live with my head in the sand or my mind up in the foul clouds
I cannot return to being enchanted by this baneful, debilitating shroud
Often convinced I am breathing through society’s last days
I murdered the wonderful to make the torment hide away
Every day I am waiting for the end of the world to soon occur
And so every day I get the urge to plummet back into the blur
But this stagnant cycle was a wicked dependence and not a cure
I became shackled in this routine of self-execution in the obscure
Having flourishing doubts about being back in the director’s chair
Combating thoughts telling me I belong on the floor of the impaired
These flickering glimmers are what make life beautiful
Dimming them in the fog will just strengthen all the horrible
Having enslaving doubts about being back in the director’s chair
Combating thoughts telling me I belong in a dungeon for the impaired
I had become a corroding tree in a gaunt land armed with no leaves
Worshipping a charming villain that hurt me much more than it relieved
I had become a crestfallen, charcoal sky that forfeited its most cherished stars
I had turned into an apparition that away from my true self had wandered too far
Focus my eyes on the faint glimmers and continue persevering
Covering the clear will only lead to all the beauty disappearing
By Adam Keith McElwain
Copyright Adam Keith McElwain Poetry
