I like to play with words
Being a writer and all
And there's a particular game
Of solving them
That I daily play
But I've hit a point
Where I just can't solve it
As days have passed
Since I started this puzzle
That I just can't figure out
And I've never hated
A five letter word so much
But hanging as I am
Yes upside down
In the middle of nowhere
When I went to bed last night
Never having lived
A moment of my life
Where I'd ever expected
The oddest bit of drama
Would ever unfold
So the last damn thing
I should be concerned but with
Is my struggle with a puzzle
That I cannot solve
Which is infinitely easier
To get but out of
Than the mess I'm in
I guess I just wanna think
That my life isn't turned
Completely turned
As upside down as me
When it totally has
Since I'm no longer human
Which I should have mentioned
As I'm some kind of living mark
Of the exclamation kind
Which I wouldn't mind as much
If the life that I'd lived
Before this strangeness
In which I find myself now
Had been the kind of life
That it could have been
Yeah to call me a loser
As harsh a thing
As it is to think
Never mind say
Wouldn't sadly be
The wrongest thing
To say to me
As I'm rightly capable
Of so much more
Than what I've earned
I just didn't do but near enough
To have what could have been mine
Chief among them yes
A goodly ship
With a lovely woman
That I had the joy
To spend my time with
And do the things
That men and women do
When they're in love
Or something like it
That's always been
A sad hard journey for me
Like harder than most
I guarantee it
As I've only ever known
The shortest of brevities
Of what you'd call happiness
And the last few years
These happy whens
Have been limited dinky little boats
In the online spaces
That I go but to
To not be alone
Or dream of a better life
Where I'm creatively pleased
With money in the wake
And that's the other hard thing
That I fear I might never know
In any damn much
Of a happy way
The creator's success
With a steady stream
Borne but out my head
As I want to write my stories
And have them be read
With a happiness that brings
Some money to me
Like it wasn't an oddity
Because there's nothing wrong
With making a living
And doing what you love to do
Though it's sadly true
For one in the arts
To do it thus
I still have hope
That I can do this yes
Though I have to say was
Don't I now
Because I haven't a clue
How I can get out of this
Let alone return to my life
Seeing as I'm no longer human
And am but now
A living bit of punctuation
Which begs the question
How long before
I lose all sensation
Of my human days
Because how can I expect to live
As a human man
Inside my head
If my outside sadly is
As different as this
Simply put I can't
With the next question being
Do I even want to live
As anything but a man
Because it's one damn thing
To be man yes underlived
With little creative success
And no life of love
To much but speak me of
And it's quite another
To be what I am now
An exclamation mark
Like seriously
Is that a cosmic joke
Now I hate to be thinking
In such a terrible way
At any time of year
Let alone its end
When Christmas is coming
And I should be humming
Some Christmas songs
As I ready myself for the best single day
Of the year as a whole
But that was before
I woke up like this
Hanging from my feet
Though I no longer have any
But it's where they would have been
So I'm getting used to the terms
That I have to use
Given my awful new form
Not that the one
I've lived to have
Was of the handsome fit kind
But it was mine
And what I lived into
I could live but out of
Which is easier said than done
But it was normal
And not a thing
That made me question
If I wanted to live
Like how am I supposed to fight
For this new existence
When I'm not only
Not human anymore
I'm not even free
So I can decide to be
Or not to be in fact
Like it'd be a conscious act
That I took for myself
So I'm the hero type
That I would write myself
As I don't write
About winning heroes
Who are living their best lives
Because I'm not living mine
And they have strangeness thrust upon them
And they rise to the challenge
That I haven't risen to myself
But it's a far easier thing
To write about being a hero
Than it is to be one
And it's never been easy
To do the former
So how can I be expected
To do the latter
Again the answer first
That comes to mind
Is I can't even
As I also lack arms
And even if I had themselves
How could break but free
When I'd surely lack the strength
To do such a heroic thing
So really
All I can do
Is hang right here
And wait for life
To continue on
And see what next
I have to endure
Because I lack the means
To do anything but
And I've never felt
So helpless before
Than I feel right now
“Wah wah wah
I can't do a thing
All I can do
Is hang 'round here
And whinge like a loser
Or as some would say
A woman right
But I'll not do that
Nor will I throw out an easy insult
At lesser men
Which I could easily do
When it comes to you
Because that's all you've been doing
Since I've been listening
And I finally had enough
When I understood
That you were gonna keep on complaining
Without doing a thing
To save your life
Though hanging upside down
Is surely no easy thing
I'll grant you that
But it's clear to me
You need help
And the first way to help you
Is ball you out
And hope you take my words to heart
Because I've been alone
Yes long enough
But you won't last long
If you're all wah wah wah
Like you are right now
So toughen up
And be the best man
That you can be”
She said to me
A normal human woman
Who looked plenty good
Not that I should be thinking
Of anything like that
But men are gonna men
“You're human still
So it's not this place
That steals our humanity
And makes us look
Like marks of punctuation
I said with incredulity
As it didn't make sense to me
On an instinctive level
She nodded yes
But slowly so
“It's the cocoon you're in
That has those transforamtive effects
That aren't permanent no
At least they weren't for me
I can't say the same for you
Because I don't know the rules
Of this terrible place
And don't wanna stick around
To find them out
And know them like
I know the rules of Earth”
Which I could well understand
“I'm in a cocoon”
I asked her
Once but more
With open incredulity
As I would have thought
That I would know
If I was in one or not
Not that I had anything close
To a bad experience
With anything like it before
So I wasn't speaking
With any authority
To say the least
“Yes you surely are
And I'm gonna cut you down
And hope you snap the eff out
Of this stupid state
Of wah wah wah
Woe is me
And everything sucks
Like I have no stupid fucks
To give about your life
While we struggle here
To stay alive
And hopefully return
But safely home”
She said with resolve
Which all I needed
To fully understanding
That we'd get to do that