Gollum Talk

Gollum Talk
2. Suicide after Siamese Dialogue


What makes you think life is so short?
You say it ends sometime there
(and “vain miles to go before I sleep”).
I’m tired and don’t want to talk about life
But the day is too long for my today
In this room sucking breath out of me
Stewing in my own sweat, talking about joy.
Don’t you see, the walls are closing in
Like the toothed cylinders of a sugarcane crusher?

(I know you’ll hate me for complaining,
But I see a self-deceptive, romantic man old before his time
Ignoring that fat leech sucking between your fingers
And singing love song to your tantalizing desperate wife
Jelly with another man locked in your own rocking bed)
You sing out of tune, and unconsciously stop here and there
(Because you hear mixed, saddening sounds
Giving your heart repeated thumps threatening to explode)

I’ve done a lot with disinterest, not condescendingly
But what should I do with this eternity of the day
That never wears on but spreads as an interminable desert?
It’s tired me for the day, made me impatient
To smash the walls for a draft of fresh air and light
There begins my day.

© Thoithoi O'Cottage (March 2014)
Initially published on my blog, LakeBard