(untitled) -- a collection of experimental poetry [COMPLETE]

op.7

it was at that point that i realised the source of my distress. something was missing. what was missing? purpose? meaning? happiness? none of these things truly existed. they were simply illusions that shrivelled upon being touched.

why was I alive? i guess that was the crux of the question. why was anything alive? why did chemicals decide to become mortal? why did single-celled creatures think that they needed each other? in the end, they were still all alone, regardless of their spatial proximity to others. loneliness is an aggregate state of the soul, not a set of coordinates.

still, i felt empty. what was missing? maybe there wasn't anything wrong with the universe. maybe i was the typo. the square root of a negative number -- too irrational for its own good. subtracting from itself. maybe i was pretending to solve an equation by adding and subtracting useless variables.

rearranging infinite puzzle pieces, combinatorics told me that my chances of finding frustration were equal to one, which meant that i had zerochance of ever finding anything else. simple problem solving, really.

so i dived off the edge of a cliff, but the sound of my snapping neck and the sound of my crunching skull and the sound of my squelching brain still felt empty and hollow like something was supposed to be there but it wasn't.

Mark has six apples, Texas is the second largest state in the USA -- why should you bother to get out of bed if you already feel dead inside?

you have ten minutes to complete this task. please show full working out.

i passed my exam with flying colours. just like everyone else. this left me only emptier and i didn't know where else to go. my therapist said I should go someplace new. so i went to another dimension.

here, twitching mushrooms grew in dense bushels on thin blue-tinged pyramids. the sky was always black and the stars were always out. comets often flew by tracing strands of silver. this world orbited a purple-red gas giant striped in chocolate macchiato strands. there were five moons: three glowed bright green, one was blue, the last one had been devastated by am ancient collision and now it floated over the skydome like a 'memento mori' written on a moonrock napkin and torn apart in tears.

here, i wasn't home, just like everywhere else. there were creatures that lived here. anemones twice my height and thrice my width, wandering in packs, wearing brown monks' robes, and murmuring inscrutable syllables relating events in the long-forgotten past of this peculiar world that mightn't even be true.

i was treated as a strangers' stranger -- constantly reminded by their prodding accusatory tentacles that i did not fit in amongst them. this was nothing new. shrugging, i started spitting out random sounds, whatever came to mind, really.

'eggbeater waterfall tilling birdegg bee ant,'

the anemones all turned round and stared.

i continued, 'fiefdom horace the only hot pepper in the cement'

the monks began mimicking my words, grotesquely distorting my tongue into slobbering wheezes.

the fungi hanging from the crystal bushes started throbbing -- a good omen.

i felt their excitement -- whether it was through telepathy, intuition, or guesswork made no difference. someone was finally listening!

'ulcer! ulcer! opiate your zaftig!!'

the anemones cheered, and, for the tiniest increment of a second, i felt like all the stars in the universe were shining for me. after fumbling in the darkness of a labyrinth for years, my bloodied hand now graced the smooth surface of what i knew to be the light-switch.

it was then that the anemone creatures closed in and devoured me whole, tearing the skin off my bones like wrapping paper.

what their serrated teeth could not consume, they hid under the mushroom-bearing crystals.