Through This Mind

writing for me is beyond choice, expressing the past is how I survive in the present.

Through This Mind
by Keaton Foster



As I sleep,
Here I dream.
Memories fill
Any and all gaps.
What is real
And what is not
Further invades
What has happened
And what was imagined—
Spilling into the same hole.
Deeper still it goes.
Endless, the well.
Tedious, the swell.

I can’t understand
How it is that I got here,
But I know quite well
That I can never leave.

In this prison well made,
There are no walls,
Nor guards up high.
There is nothing
To confine me to—
Except within myself.

But each new day,
Here I am again,
Trapped within.

Through this mind,
Ideas do grind,
Ripping slowly,
Looking for an out,
Begging to be heard.
There are many—
More than can be written,
More than can be expressed.

There are no limits,
No maximum amount.
While I’m awake,
A constant reel
Of memories plays
In an endless loop
Of things that I can’t fake.

Things done to me,
People who betrayed me,
Family turned monsters,
Monsters made real.

Though the lessons dealt,
I’d like to think they didn’t hate me—
They just loved themselves more.
But I know that’s not the case.

I would like to forgive them,
But such required forgiveness
Is beyond who I am
And what I am all about.

This heart is jaded,
This soul is damaged.
Believing is a luxury
That I can’t afford.
Always, I am broke.

Through this mind,
A wilderness defined,
Plays out its role.

Creatures come and go.
Life exists, then it does not.
Simple it seems—
Complexity it screams.

I hear it all.
Understanding every nuance
Is what I do best.

How I have come to be,
My life and all else—
Such an aggravated mess.
I didn’t deserve this.
But regardless of that,
It appears that I have become
Most deserving of all.

Thus,
The blank page.
To it, I am enslaved.
To me, it calls—
Screaming of truth,
Begging for lies,
Wishing what was next
Was all but a mess.
Wishing each new word
Was not connected to
Or obligated by the last.

From behind these
Endlessly shallow eyes
Lives something beyond life,
And surpassing an enviable death—
Something greater than myself
And all else I have ever known
Or tried to forget about.

Through this mind...



Through This Mind
Written by Keaton Foster Copyright © 2008-2019