I no longer know if I am mad or if I'm feigning it to cover my own mediocrity I sometimes feel like a fell wizened necromancer labouring at his pleasure performing his liturgy as one long consumed by ashes Factory fumes nourishing the dreams of the cosmopolite Affectionate longing for white coats, auditoriums and blackboard dust Spiraling walkways, webs of concrete, bricks and mirrored glass I no longer know if I have experienced passion/love/despair/hate Was it only socially induced behaviour? Like long forgotten twisted poetry gleaned from mouldy parchment Pain is always more real than bliss It's in greater supply It's the warm familiar womb in which your mind can hide As your open doors and portals Walk the paved paths to offerings Foiled predetermined neurological patterns Like paper boats bound for the drains You speak the incantations written on grey mortal walls syllables tasting like blood in your mouth You know absolution You know mortallity Reality slowly peeled layer by layer outwards to the fringe where upon the altar of forgotten deities the combustion of the self still vibrates Dark flowers thrusting their thorns up reaching where manifestations of the skies labour to fill the vacuum You seek to explain the universe with numbers Itch to fill in the final answer underlined twice Like an infant you step into the first light at dawn It's bright and bitter and sharp