Manic Apprehension Theory | a poem

I claw at the heather carpeted shale slopes, pulling myself up; to what destination that awaits me, I do not know.

This is the mind of a boy chasing things he is told he wants. His desires have been melted down and reshaped by calloused hands known for their wanton deviant familiarity.

The Pacific Ocean to my back is everything other than beauty to my eyes. A reminder of a seething unreliable coalition of power I cannot pull away from. 

Give me the folded newspaper and I'll scrub the glass of the lighthouse clean with ash from our ritualistic burnings. I'll wipe the slate clear in the midst of a squinted chilly delirium on New Year's Eve.

I try to avoid that steadily creeping boredom, or my hands being idle for more than what you say is an appropriate amount of time. But most days, even with all chores completed, I still can't see through the scrubbed glass pane.

Twisted light refractions, and I always imagined I could harness the power of the sun to somehow concoct the quintessential solar storm to consume everything I was told I should cherish the most.

I remember, the house was cold and I sat there at the counter, pen in hand staring out the window hearing laughter in the distance. There were years left then but the ringing in my head felt like bells ominously announcing some celebrated conclusion.

Their chime can still be heard in my early morning dreams like a bell tower announcing the impending culmination to a once uttered prophecy. And a thousand voices join in with haunting Byzantine song. 

I stare out at the street now illuminated in October Sun and I'm terrified of my own mind being forever misunderstood. Maybe I could set anchor here, laid out to rust among ghost-like structures of a paved garden

I claw at the matted Heather carpet cliffs and I worry about my inability to coax from my own lips the very definitions making up a lifetime that I am searching for.

I hold on desperately pleading for something or someone or anything to help me make this decision but the only thing That I hear is the rushing wind from the sea.

Panicked. I feel my palms slipping where they grasp the woody stems and my heart begins to quicken its pace. Do I hold on to that which I know forever, or let go?

I shut my eyes with panicked determination threatened to be swallowed up by everything forever known and unknown to every one of my futures

and then with the mangled remnants of heather root in my hands where it was ripped from shale slopes I'll allow my mind to fall, tumbling through vapid mist until I no longer recognize the uninhabited wilds which greet my eyes.

And there, I will wipe clean the soot from my cheeks and no longer feel the need to desperately coax from my lips 

a lifetime of beautiful dreams.