Saturday, February 5, 2011

Just Another Freak - A study in confronting reality

People have a seemingly compulsive need to create a mental/emotional picture of the world, their worth, social status and their own self image. People believe this creation of their own mind is reality. Sometimes, they find out how wrong they are when confronted with what is real. Sometimes, when that mental safety net rips and they plummet from the security of their mistaken belief of what's real they never stop falling into a horror they cannot fathom because it IS reality.

Everyone of us walks a tightrope between what we think and believe is real and what really is.

The following original poem by G. Laidlaw is about one person falling off that tightrope...

Just Another Freak

Your mind is on your image as you leave the office tower.
You join the throng of puppets on the street.
He is just another piece of stinking human flotsam.
No more alive than the filthy sidewalk underneath.
You might have seen him (and ignored him) many times before,
Or maybe you disdainfully stepped past others of his kind.
Tied securely to your puppet strings until you meet his gaze.
You've seen him with your eyes before but never with your mind.
He cuts your strings with a glance. You fall crying to the ground.
No longer as a puppet are you so cleverly disguised.
Your insulating plastic bubble shatters with the weight
Of the truth you see dancing in his eyes.
He licks the foam of madness from his lips,
Pulls a greasy knot of hair from his brow.
His eyes burn fever red as he rapes you with his gaze.
Every dog has his day and his is now.
The scrape on your knee burns with the memory of nylon.
You kiss the dirty sidewalk with your cheek.
Crowds of plastoid people pass by but they don't help you.
When you fall you're just another freak.
He sniffs at the hint of fear, escaping past the perfume
You sprayed on your neck a thousand years ago.
His snot encrusted nostrils flare in eager hunger.
His euphoric state of madness makes him glow.
You cannot reconcile this harsh reality,
With what you thought was real just before
You met the rabid gaze of an honest man,
And for the first time in your life found out the score.
He ripped away the plastic persona
That you carried like a shield everywhere.
He exposed you to yourself and you crumpled.
Fear and loathing of yourself too much to bear.
He moves like a snake through the layers of your aura.
His rancid breath burns like hot wax on your cheek.
Cry out if you want to but the puppets will not hear you.
You've fallen now you're just another freak.
When his scabby hand touches you it burns your skin like fire.
You lay there paralyzed in a spreading pool of piss.
You spent your life planning all the things that you would do.
Never for a moment thinking it would come to this.
Your reality was smoke and mirrors, it will not save you now.
Hiding from the truth has made you weak.
He is from the real world, come to claim your ass
For you, my fallen puppet, are just another freak.
He's ripped away your plastic shield.
Your inner self is not concealed.
Your destiny has been revealed.
Your fate it seems is truly sealed.
A life of truth with no appeals.
Honesty accepts no deals.
Now you know how it feels
To be just another freak

- G. Laidlaw

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission

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