The Methods of Drowning

Hello, Kevin.
Welcome to the Deep End.


I know them.
The faces that have made up
So much of my life.

All ages
Sizes
Shapes and Color.
They've all taken homes in my heart.

Giving up
They still walk
Go through the motions
Of the life they have settled for.
And here am I, now
I've come to join them.

Did I chase selfish purposes?
Is that what brought me back
To this place?
In part...
Did I hope to enter fiery chambers
In hopes of bringing them back
With me?
Yes.
But I am no Messiah.

Surrounded by waters
dark and ice-burdened
I should be crying, shouldn't I?
I know I should.
But nothing.

I find myself distraught
Come to a point
I try to force it
Take control of the tears
Make them come, if they won't on their own.

Still nothing.

They are sick,
these people of mine.
I see this now.
A virus, mechanical
Chemical
Unfeeling.
It consumes them
Turns their cells
To murderous purpose.
For them, it is too late.

And what of I?

I have misjudged myself.
Brazen in my arrogance,
I thought I'd save my world.
Mistaken
Now I, too, am uneasy upon my feet.
The onset of Fever,
an aching inside my skin
it creeps through me.

The truth is ugly, isn't it?
My words claimed me to be
Righteous
Good-Willed in my self-immolation.
I am but a coward,
Leaping into the waters,
Panicking,
falling towards the cold, airless death
And what have I proven
In this.

Every Good Person
Every hand offered me
Out-stretched to save me
Or lead me to the surface...
All of them, I have pushed away
In my Idiotic Pride.
Now none remain.
So, THIS is what I wanted,
Chose to be my eternal prison.

There is no beauty in this.
This darkness holds
No redeaming flicker of good.
The illusion of beauty in pain,
naught but a lie I spun,
and I, the only one who
Didn't catch it.
Believed
In such a foolish notion.
Not even pale ghosts
of the romantic thoughts, which I
alone
attributed to this open cage
this eternal punishment I have condemned myself to.

The Fever Rages
and scared, alone
I am too ashamed.
My shame silences me.
Must never let it be seen.
I must not let this burning
inside of me
be witnessed by the world.
My stupidity must not be known.

Digging deep into my chest,
Viral killing machine,
it turns my heart against me,
beating,
poisoning me with every contraction, release.

And through this muscle, as a doorway
From flesh into my true self,
My soul becomes infected,
It spreads,
My higher being, red
Irritated and pulsing.
Pain, searing.
Distant from the physical.
An agony so real, more than you know.
How much longer do I have?
How long, before I am
Lost and Irretrievable.

I have no more presence of self,
Not enough to gauge.
And all those for whom I have cared,
Cared for me,
Have fallen to the ground
bodies smoldering
caving away to dust
To exist no more
To never have been.

The scarlet blisters of my spirit,
darkening, the life blood
Of my eternal being.
Almost black now.
Love.
Fuck love.
Stab the weak emotion dead.
Sodomize the disfigured corpse of it.
Come upon it in disregard,
A fluid no longer the pretext of life,
It lights the feeling afire
til only ash remains.

Now only animosity, violence remains
twisted shade of what I once was
No
what I could have been
yet tossed to the midden heap
To spite myself and all who believed
in me and what good
I was capable of performing.
I spit upon myself now,
For I am pitiful, wretched
I am the hated one, if only despised by
This shred that remains of myself.

I deserve this.
I have earned this punishment,
Through my own sins against myself.
I blaspheme,
Never has this not been true.
I curse the name of God,
especially where he dwells within me.
What an ugly being am I?
That only now do I regret this?
Only when the disease uncovers
who I really am
Twisted and deformed.
Only when I feel the pain
of holy retribution.
Only now do I beg forgiveness?

I am disgusting, putrid...
And to be forgiven
that would be violent rape
snuff film, murdered girls in white dresses
destruction of youth and innocence
through horrifying
intrusive invasions
That would be like sunshine
compared to the depths of unspeakable
travesty
that my forgiveness would represent.
God would be a rapist,
Murderer of dignity,
to allow such things...

I will suffer,
rightfully so, until my soul falls in on itself
and I join the others in nothing.
I will accept it, and hate it.
I will scream in agony.
I will writhe.
But I will not hope to be saved.
And I will never again cover blackness,
Evil and Torment,
with the transparent illusion that it might,
somehow,
actually contain an ART.
I will weep until my cessation for this sin,
for claiming righteousness in
Death
Decay
Loss
and Violence.

Know now, watchers...
I deem my words,
My life,
My outspoken praise of filth,
Unholy.
Condemned.

by Kevin Guest