Trainwreck Autopsy
by Odin Roark

So young
Yet how carefully is chosen the scalpel
Running hell bent through puberty
Pining to be that next age
That grown up
The panacea of having arrived

Until

Actually appearing at the threshold
Self-loathing’s candy apple head appears
Having lurked in the shadows
Since first insecurity rot frustration
On the first innocent
Stealing attention from…
Anyone?

Remembered burning of the ants?
The firecracker placed in the bird’s nest?
The feathers flying?
The ants curling?

And so…

Desperation reconsiders finding the answer
The scalpel
Perhaps a hatchet
Imaginably an axe
Maybe a rusty chainsaw
Certainly an incision
A slash and cut would relieve…

But

Adulthood lumbers through middle age
Arriving at true adulthood empty

Still

Past false starts heal
Scars of chicken-shit attempts for acknowledgment
Guised in the pitiable posture of victim
Stare back each night
As drowning trials nightmare the sleep
Giving forth the only reality acceptable

So rules the suffering mind set
Convinced that sense of self
Belongs to other’s pleasure
Other’s ownership
Other’s purchased entertainment
At victim’s expense

So goes the drifting
As the last puff
The last needle’s worth of escape
Provides the living autopsy

A few moments of honesty’s razor-sharp exposure
Relives one fucked up choice after another
Leading to the inevitable last
Where existence cares not for breath