The Soul Stuck, (Hell itself is an Autobiography), or Autobiography from Hell

#1

Even though I stopped her from being soft I could not stop her
from being against herself.
I could tell you about those black-dove-nights which are the ones missing and all you have
are your aqua days. All you have are the things you've made
but now imagine tearing apart the lining of pernicious bubbles who stuck to you
and checkmate your will to live with a husbandry of material fact.
It's all a priori torn at once.
Then maybe you will have known the blind drunkenness by which I've assessed my life.
How bitter I am in these long winded summers unwinding like a desert without trace of wind.
If I were God I would choose to line heaven with the lusty and sort hypocrites into Hell.
But seriously and honestly I wonder what difference it would make anyways?
I've always been a stickler for line breaks, let's see if I can break that habit
and keep the ukase that calls me to stay clear of bright eyed boys bringing ballads, romantic.

 

#2

Otherwise you're probably in Purgatory's 6th circle
whose aftermath transpired to make a conglomerate of seed and straw.
What advice could I give?
But to listen to her describe an unending stream of pain?
Both pain in the physical and mental
as though at 24 her entirety were already expired.
My long-winded avidity towards viduity might have saved me once
but what if I took recourse to tell you this tale by memory?
It's like they say, all the schools say, "show, don't tell"
which in itself is a silly thing seeing as I want to tell you something.
Perhaps this grope at candidness is just another way to think things through alone
until the seed and straw lay haphazardly and grows to wither into sered shame.
Does it remind you of death or topography?
If I were the Devil there would be ballasts and speed reading contests that no one ever wins.
What kind of prize would I want anyway? Maybe love.

 

#3

But back to my autobiography which is actually your biography.
I hate it when men use the "I". Well, no I don't mean that entirely
but the lyric "I" is an ancient woman's soul that will never die
and the misuse by men makes the voice more than it needs to be.
Where I would daydream you'll find my scream and teem it with talc
is called vitamin and makes the boy idyllic like the boy who was my other half
without having to exist but then he did and it was great!
I found him but I couldn't fill him but was soothed by the fact that I could love
and be alone in my daydreams waiting for the next wet dream.
So instead I make the text into not what it is and something else entirely.
It might next become something I imagine as red oneiric velleities
like him and his face spewing from the tip of my pen without permission.

 

#4

I don't blame Robert Hass for having such friends, I do not,
and I don't blame the metre for being composed of my haptic conversation
full of melancholia and reified, deified, and clarified by sumptuous men
who know too much about the shaded place, I spend the night.
It is a copious brown paint that makes me a man
though I wish I could repaint it Schiap and Dairyide, but this is law.
This is no apology for my secret language set in shades of chaos,
it is still, stunted and stinted and it is still
until time and day and season allow it, is read straight.

 

#5

"It reads well but only through the geometries of your soul
and given that your solipsistic nature has no reedy rash glass thought
for stalks and their unbroken line of vision between the pupil and the target,
I would say you should keep your diary to yourself for a while
though this might leave a lapse and cause you to sigh in a gustatory manner
that may or may not be the world read without contacts or glasses.
I see in your work some trees that you've bought.
The wind blows through them but there is no sound of rustling leaves
and no veridical thing moves in your mind even though it be fecund and verdant.
Things move, yes, but you seem to disagree with my heavy handedness.
So I guess it goes to show that the sublime blankets the beautiful
like you to me even though I know that you will send me away in time"

Sex concluded.

 

#6

I know that love is now pity and it's kind of an orange
but better yet still it is the one thing I would choose over you.
I've realized my big problem is I'd always choose poetry over the ones I love
cause peer pressure is aged until white wine doth splatter
across four anapests and is splintered and even if I am a synthetic narcoleptic up on speed
and tonic water the poet lore that I so covet to be a part of might just look like okra
but only if you'll always stay then I'll need more of you
seeing as you've already been giving me everything in dreaming.

 

#7

I didn't want this to be confessional and certainly didn't want it to become sappy
like the sap that leaks from under the shrewdly scented bark of a maple tree,
as though my puckering lips could reach under the waxing crescent moon for a kiss,
pulling the taught skin of my lover's cock
into an earring
and made into a moment.
The heat of my jejune points are stopping me, cold, in my deer tracks, or shouldn't I say my fox tracks,
bear, with me,
though I let the rainbow-bellied trout slip away and am now dolled up in doubt for my appearance
has only been made by rumors
in order that the midnight firmament might be true.
Could I consume possibility with that secret?
I conform to certainty like a slab of elderly coal.

 

#8

Let me tell you, dear reader, I'd rather not be real right now
but my real body dies to worms not dust
and the other stuff stays constant or is made, I've decided
(as if there's another other than I).
It is like pleasure unwinding Nature
in order to disturb eternity just like John Ashbery said in "Late Echo"
that we're just the talking machines of our day, or something,
but don't disturb the metaphors under and around me
because only then will I remain in orbit.
The crazy thing about starting a diary from Hell is that you're no longer
reading it with the patience of a wounded warthog.
I don't have writers block, I'm drunk on my own self-made air.

The Hypocrite Reader is free, but we publish some of the most fascinating writing on the internet. Our editors are volunteers and, until recently, so were our writers. During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, we decided we needed to find a way to pay contributors for their work.

Leave a Tip

Help us pay writers (and our server bills) so we can keep this stuff coming. At that link, you can become a recurring backer on Patreon, where we offer thrilling rewards to our supporters. If you can't swing a monthly donation, you can also make a 1-time donation through our Ko-fi; even a few dollars helps!

The Hypocrite Reader operates without any kind of institutional support, and for the foreseeable future we plan to keep it that way. Your contributions are the only way we are able to keep doing what we do!

And if you'd like to read more of our useful, unexpected content, you can join our mailing list so that you'll hear from us when we publish.