We’d like to introduce a fellow Poet…

Life In Solitary

(If you find me in the center of my mind screaming… escape than)

I am no more the lead role in this play

I have, it seems, been boo’d off stage

And stashed behind life’s black curtain

Am I still a person?

Or just an inanimate cardboard cutout

Aging, waiting for the day I’ll be drugout?

I have no need for affection

I have my own pet dust collection

I play in the same places spiders spin

All I know is what my vent blows in

I am the friends and enemies in my brain

They assist me in this litany of paper charades

I can only write what they tell me to say

They have, it seems, found their own stage

I am trapped inside, looking at myself

I know what’s wrong, but powerless to help

I have lost grasp of the world outside my head

But the concrete clouds surround a metal bed

Flashlight moon, florescent sun

A population of one (or legion)

How strange it is to be crowded in loneliness

Claustrophobic whispering walls closing in

Every time the keyhole darkens I hear my name

Turning locks, this could be the day

My thoughts got loud since the machine broke

Frightened by every ray of hope

Someday I’ll be dusted off, thrown back in the show

On a strange stage, around strange people

They don’t know me anymore, not this me

I’ve devolved, down to animal instinct

They gave me lines, but I improvise

I don’t even understand some of the shit I write

I only follow cue

I don’t know what to do

I can’t see the other end of me

I’m unraveling, I cannot see

I’m spinning infinitely

Who could I be?

 Mike Powell