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Story by Michael Lee
Johnson
Devil of the Night
(Bipolar Disarrangement of Words)
Come write with me I need to take you on
a brief night journey that has already started.
The devil is the night because my night
has holes in it. My brain is deep-fried then frozen in a pan
and seldom goes anywhere. Sometimes I can't even figure out how
I deep-fried my thoughts or deep-fried my thinking. I find myself
very alone when I'm perplexed like this. My breath comes out
like cinnamon and my words are lethargic on my vocal cords. I'm
starting to think I'm nothing more than a condiment or a legendary
troll. Sometimes I feel like a stone giant in my brain and sometimes
I feel like a cranium dwarf. I'm not a writer of fiction or poetry
at best. I ride high at times with joy; I ride low at time like
a bent over spoon. When I mix all this mess in a cereal bowl
I want to scream out loud.
On another topic, being the shadow of who
I am I reach out to touch the snow-filled night but my fingertips
don't feel the cold. Is there something wrong with my senses
between the warm and the cold within me? The street lights the
darkness of this tale I spin; must be poetry of some sort bewitched.
I can't even write poetry without the advice
of editors I don't know that well and it makes me feel in and
out of doubts. I'm clumsy with my words and the way they form,
or don't form, I guess. Sometimes I think I'm talking to myself
and there is no audience: but that's fiction, correct?
Let me ask you, is someone crazy enough
to pay me for this writing while I remain in this institution
and insurance is forced to pay the bill? Do you think delusions
will make me the writer I've always dreamed my nightmares would
lead me to? I'm not trained for things like this you know, it
could end this way; I can only write a few paragraphs at a time.
Outside my hospital window there are snowflakes,
thin, steady, adding white shadows to dark tree limbs, there
are holes in this night, hanging so low.
I see brown doves at 3 AM; I registrar
these thoughts as Frankenstein. The devil is the night and I
fall asleep with my head near my writing pad.
©Michael Lee Johnson
2008
Michael Lee Johnson is a poet,
and freelance writer, Itasca, Illinois and author of The Lost
American: From Exile to Freedom. He has also published two chapbooks
of poetry. He has been published in USA, Canada, New Zealand,
Australia, Scotland, Turkey, Fuji, Nigeria, Algeria, Africa,
India, United Kingdom, Republic of Sierra Leone, Nepal, Thailand,
Kuala Lumpur, and Malaysia. He is also publisher and editor of
four poetry, flash fiction sites--all presently open for submission:
Author website: http://poetryman.mysite.com/
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