Fred Aiken Writing

October 18, 2023

ax splitter

i begin by taking out the ax from storage. it’s not an impressive ax. it’s rusted. a crack splinters down the side of the handle. it needs to be sharpened. it needs to be replaced. but i’m sentimental.

i bring the ax down. miss. but not entirely. blood trickles out.

October 17, 2023

pretending to write non-existence

i keep writing lines
to one poem after another,
and they sound
okay
in my head, at first,

but then when i read them out loud,
and i’m presented with their existence,
which could be for two minutes,
or two million years (though unlikely),

i rapidly delete them
and then pretend i never knew they existed,
and in a way they don’t

October 16, 2023

swaying in the midnight

i keep scrolling through
an endless webpage of information
that i don’t need to consume,
but do need to consume,
or i don’t know if i should consume or not,
but it’s there, and i’m here, so…
might as well, i suppose,
and my eyes pop out of their socket,
blood-shot, tired, unable to comprehend
why my mind can’t shut itself off,
reboot and restart,
i have no fuel left,
and i’m confusing profundity for consumption,
as i sway into the midnight bliss
that wars against itself until there’s nothing left
but the barren wasteland of a mind cannibalizing
its own thoughts and putting them on display
for all, or none, to gawk and point,
maybe even laugh