Roxy's Rejects
A Trove of Trash
Mental Illness
IN THE ASHES.
I awoke and the ashes scattered.
My eyes were fire and pain,
But I was alive
And dust is not for the living.
That first breath,
That fragile, fledgling gasp,
Was all smoke and embers-
But the air was there
So I choked again.
​
There is death all around me-
The decay burns my lungs.
How am I alive in this madness?
​
The cost of seeing,
Of catching air in every gasp,
With skin and bone to run and flee,
Exists in the form of a choice-
Will I break free of the silence,
Of the fire and ash,
Or will I again close my eyes
To expire within my cocoon of apathy?
​
UNTITLED.
Low, empty.
A broken bottle with festering mold
Trapped in a trash can
Long abandoned and forgotten.
Alone, weathered.
A rotting shack hidden in trees,
Broken dishes strewn about
Holes in the floor where vermin burrow.
Pathetic, wanting.
A drunken slob in a gutter
Vomit lacing a shabby jacket,
A cheap flask in dirty fingers.
Last, disappointment.
A prodigy fallen so low-
A would've turned to a could've,
Bringing us down to dream of what-ifs.
THERE IS DEATH HERE.
There is death here
Hidden in the cobwebs and muck,
Lurking, waiting
To splatter across asphalt and pavement;
A child's blood baking in the summer sun
Amidst glass and metal claws.
The dead crumpled against the wheel while others scream for it.
There is death here
Hidden in the sunshine
As we laugh and watch the glory of the Earth;
And then it turns and a broken window slashes
Cruelly, like stone, hard, penetrating,
And she cries over what's lost.
There is death here.
AFTERMATH OF SUICIDE GONE WRONG.
A cacophony rages,
My ears are ringing,
And it all ends disturbingly quiet.
Screaming with no blood around
The shards disperse far from me-
I am sickened.
Sickened from the grotesque figures
That should be plaguing my mind
Yet stay from it.
And I know that’s a hell all its own.
What could have been
And what should have been-
The very nemesis of this reality.
And I am struck deaf and dumb
As life creeps on around me,
Speeding like the very thing
That should’ve been the ultimate.
I am sickened.