ALL MY PARANOIAS
by Victor Enns
They chase me down like a Thurber cartoon
Some so simple as “you stink” as I sniff and sniff
And can’t tell the difference since yesterday. There’s the one
“you think you’re so smart,” all frown and sneer
“you and your big words, who do you think you are,”
lobbed like a frozen horse turd, as I turn my head +
start to run. “Hah, you’re so fat, look at you!!!
I have my own jeering section, “yeah, that!!”
My heart thumps me a good one, changing my direction
maybe maybe maybe baby this is the big one you’ve
all been waiting for, and me too even more than you
My bum ticker stops, I dream my father’s benediction.
My dreams haunt my bedroom, angrier than Saul
throwing spears at David, shake me awake as I gorge
on fruit and bread as Jimmy Bang foretold. I do
believe in good health, now, but it is too late,
yes yes we all die, but I will only fear my own
death butterflies my heart, a pump that heeds
only iron, and smells like perdition. “Don’t start
just don’t. Look at yourself, it’s because you are fat.”
“Bring it on,” says that part of me that talks back.
Jack kneels behind me, Alex pushes me over
for my insolence I am always punished.
My body is weak, all my paranoias attack
kicking dust in my face. My father straps
me righteously for being late. Do unto
others what they did to you, remembering
spittle caught in his father’s mighty
moustache, with each exhausting breath.
The cat’s out of the bag, my spirit flags
it’s really the brain, it’s plain, that sets me back.
4.
Time slips away, while I think too much
paranoias, the eviction notice is being prepared
the whispers in the lobby a sure sign I’m not
welcome here or anywhere. “I ain’t got no home”
sings Richard Manuel, braiding the noose,
“Oh, look at his,” a suicidal paranoia sucks
the time out of me, but leaves me alive
only one leg left to kick against the pricks.
5.
My thinking will get me
arrested, if I dare write it down
confusing my friends, wanting
it seems, a simpler elocution
to label what I am, and they’re all
wrong, leaving the table with a frown.
“It’s not the subject matter, far from it.
But imagine all the repression no wonder
your character does what he does!”
Resemblance noted, but I’m not
the face I make you
believe, I’m a poor mind
reader, behind my mask.
to be continued