roar the rockstar death age

my claws are pathetically weak.
i've resigned to the fact
i will never be able
to use in public
with confidence
and success.
i therefore
for sure
am not to be useful.

not trying to reach
or clasp
or grip
or grasp
or feel
or wave
or poke
or give
a middle finger up
to funny friends
or annoying people i don't know.

my claw got RSI and i was told he had to die.
they chopped him off
from the tip of the bone
and exposing the nerves to the air
i have now a stump
for a hand
a stump
for a heart
sharp pain in my
fang

no i'm not crying
there's some rubbish in my eye
without a hand or claw or pokey
i cannot pry it out and wipe it dry.

i curl up in a ball and swim in my eye water
and pretend i'm somewhere hotter
where the loss of moisture leads to death.

but alas i want to be here.
even if clawless
even if empty handed
or not-handed-at-all.

pass me a peach.
straight in my mouth.
papaya is the ancient fruit
but i am modern now
no claw. no claw. no claw.

so retro

i wanted a faraway dream of tacky shit and tidy cheese and cutesy ditzy polka dot cups hanging from hooks made of recently-saved-from-environmental-disaster antelopes' gratefulness tears. i craved to be part of this wave of what seemed like happy people, all neatly packed in their adorable rounded-corner boxes, commenting freely with spot-on jokes on items on the list of shared interests. they felt elegant, styled and easy.

i thought this would nurse my apparent lack of know-how in being and thinking. i thought it would ensure i am loved. pretty good as self-preservation goes, despite actions required of me going against the grain of want to be expressive freely and being un-contained in posture and mind frame.

well, obviously this hadn't worked or i hadn't performed correctly. i guess it was the snorting when laughing or once farting when fallen asleep on the sofa in the shared living room. i was replaced. removed. swept to the side while a new bride took my place. a squeaky girl, all ready with sparkles and smiles, whilst my greasy clothed body still in extended arms hug position, begins to feel the pain of emptiness.

now, i am not a victim out of choice, but i am a victim out of need. how else would i dare to see eye to eye with myself in the mirror again otherwise? i did what i had to. i tied the loose ends. i cleaned up my act. i wore black eyeliner. i got allopecia treatment. i fed myself with my hands, took my bones to the therapist, dragged my flesh to the city, plonked the weight on the garden chair, smiled and smelled and followed the scents to the one fine point i saw still amongst the swirls of fuzzy background and drunken traffic. a fine point so elegant and well-defined i stopped breathing and my heart promised to never beat again if i lost.

but this time it's been different. the willing pride has flinched and now doesn't care much for pleasantries. it's true you can't. it's true i may not be right. it's true. it's all true. but how else can i stand up when all i can clearly see is your point? and how else to convince the self that being what it is was not a disaster? that holding your hand was not out of need but out of desire?

and what more can i say to show i'm not wasting time, i'm not useless, i'm not stupid, i'm not selfish, i'm not careless, i'm not trying to irritate and i really do want everyone to be happy? meanings of words and waves of bland imagery projections on stained sheets skew perception occasionally. but unless we see how balance is happiness, we will have died without living. you will have died and i will dissolve into nothing.