Post-Modern Poem

The grief that is trapped inside,

It runs, frantic, it hides.

As you slowly slip away,

I can feel reality sway.

Replaying all the love you have shown,

I hear, from the abyss, a terrifying moan.

How do I know that my decision is right?

Am I doing what you want me to?

Can I ever be certain?

I can see a spiral of eternal regret,

It is spanning out in front of me,

Slowly winding around and around,

Like a never ending circling staircase,

Each step a new doubt, a new confusion,

A new terror slowly making its way into my unsettled mind.

Am I to run and hide,

To slowly slip from my mind?

To crawl and then run away,

Far too afraid to stay?

Have I shown you all I feel,

Have I given enough for a simple meal?

If all my love were turned to food,

I would have a banquet set for your mood.

But the time is slowly ticking by,

The clocks count out the hours as I lie,

Catatonic, with none by my side.

As I waft in and out of my dreams,

All is so hectic and none what it seems.

If only I could stay in one place long,

To tell what is reality and what is wrong.

I seem to stumble, regardless of place,

And all are wearing masks, not their true face.

My eyes hurt, my limbs are weak.

The gold and silver, they slide across my vision.

Dancing and making fun,

Mocking my gloom, my despair, my distorted vision,

Of reality, of longing, of everything that was.

How has it all changed such a great deal?

The silver of the mirrors, of the faces, of the masks,

I cannot tell them apart.

And then there is the gold.

It shimmers as it dances in and out of view.

The two together, displaying the new world,

Hard, cold, metallic and whitely bright.

I stumble in and out of the dark,

And though the world wavers from truth to art.

How easy it is to become lost,

The world being covered by frost.

All is white, like another mirror.

And the masks…

The masks, they haunt me, as I stumble.

They are cold,

White, silver and gold.

And when I reach for my face,

It seems too soft, too smooth, not real.

I walk to a mirror close by,

My vision blurry, but I cannot explain why.

Then I see my face and escape a scream,

It is white, it is pale, and it has a certain gleam.

A mask

I am changed

Reality is true

Things are not what they seem

Just a mirror reflecting a beloved dream