Stephanie Elizabeth Cohen, USA

Life Poems & Narrative Poetry

THE SUPERFICAL

The mind sees only that which it longs to see. That is why whispers fade so quickly and settle as a beautified memory, but then we realize that reality is merely perception. Clearly reality is nowhere.

Here at the entrance of this place,
Hangs a large marquee.
Its lights flash
As if to welcome you
With dancing stars
And the lights of Vegas.
Nobody can truly understand
The unwelcoming blindness
That penetrates into our eyes.

You have arrived to nowhere
We nothing here for you it says;
Flourished and vibrant
Like a circus advertisement.
The boundaries end here like
Barbed wire marked by this sign.
This sign of opportunity and glamour,
Of riches and bohemia…

Yet clear as crystal the message remains
“We have nothing here for you.”
And you know
There is never a way out of here;
For there isn’t an exit from this place.

Though we see child prodigies,
Freak shows, and alcoholics—
Though we see the Barbie dolls,
The demons and the junkies.
The mind is full of all
That’s indefinite and unknown.
People don’t care
They don't care to know about such things.

So soul search
And see only what you wish to see
Many minds fall for trickery;
Ruining the last
Of humanity’s intuitive essence.
The mind is self destructive…isn’t it?

Perhaps we are too
Too artistic of a human race.
We have become pseudo
Superstars and billionaires.
We don’t care
About the emotions we’ve lost
Everyone is living life
Numbly and contently.

Painting their scenery with acrylics
We create a circus world
Of beautiful things and magic.
We line the outskirts of our universe
With smoke and mirrors;
To hide the dreary skies which surround us.
Some decide to breathe in the air
Which has been polluted forever.
No one tries to hold their breath.
Instead we buy cigarettes
And Karma beads…

Dropping sadness down a sewer
For the rats to feed on;
We loose all desperation
And our sad hearts become vengefully fake.
To admit you are alone is virtually suicide.
Nobody belongs in a world like this.

We tread on along down
The never ending roads in circles;
Never getting anywhere;
But never admitting we have been corrupted.

We wear feathered masks covered in glitter.
We dye our hair fluorescent pink and vibrant indigo.
Together every sullen heart
Silently wonders just
How many colors it will take
For the pain to vanish for good;
How much makeup and codeine it will take
To turn us to a race of fiction; a film.

Reality is merely perception
And we all perceive different things
Clearly reality is a matter of trust and faith
Something extinct and unnatural.
So we starve ourselves just as to disappear
Deep behind our painted on smiles.
We lie to ourselves every day.
We are tie-dyed with aesthetic virtue,
With glamorous pride and perfection
As we waste away in this place.

The glass is always half full of emptiness.


Nowhere can provide you with a decent lie,
A true secret for riches and fame of course.
But what is left once your dream;
Your ambitions of lies, is stripped away?
The answer remains; absolutely nothing.
Once all your riches and make-up—
Your masks and fame weaken away,
You notice…you were never anything

You were nothing to begin with.
We wonder to ourselves…
Nothing is left, but how
How will we ever make nothing leave?
You can’t kill your shadow
Or the gleam in your eyes…or the mirror…
And it wouldn’t make a difference if we tried to.

Nothing is something
We experience with every breath
Of our non-existence
Here in nowhere.
Can you imagine the hunger…?
The adaptation we make to find
Nourishment in emptiness?
Can you imagine
How we have to make pain,
In order to make the numbness go away?

Sickened
I can tell you my story.

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