Rip me up
Spit me like saliva
I’m used up
For free
Love life too much
Then I hit bricks
I built my own barrier
Abrasion
Whiplash while I self hate
Hurts when karma bites you like a nerve disorder
Scream and curl up
Fuck up
I wobble while dignity is left behind like an oil leak
Crippled by the hurt
Tasting the carpet
No more holler
Clubs float off
No more pleasure
In a crater
The neon is so far now
No more flying to strangers
Nomad burnt his yurt
I fizzle like a sparkler
Bloated on jet fuel
Set to burn like a dried out Christmas tree
Bye to holding on to the static that shocks
I’m set to fall like particles
Can’t scoop or hold me
I’m falling
Pit pit pit
Twisted ankle
Painful.
Raymond Hoffman has a background in political science and Southeast Asian Studies. He has taught in China for many years and currently is a fifth grade teacher in the Midwest. Poetry writing has been used by him as a coping mechanism for bipolar disorder for over a decade now. Sylvia Plath has always been a great source of inspiration, as has been Albert Camus. He has previously been published in Beyond Words Literacy Magazine, Sad Girls Club literary blog, and Cathexis Northwest Press.