Poem - MAG Poetry Prize 2010

Inferior

by Tim Davis
Plymouth, UK

Another day I feel the drain and another time for fate
What I am now and where I’m at
Is a place darkened with a callous hate.
My worthless existence, as you have frequently reminded me
By pointing, naming, blaming and shaming;
The physical pain is to set me free.
For I would not feel like this if this were not for you
And I would not be here right now.
I’d have my perfection somewhere somehow
But your existence messed that up. And your existence messed it up.
And I strive and I fail and I change
With a better frame of mind but I know
That I can always count on you to call me back down
To pull me back down and give those words of useless
Wisdom you always give me.
And to remind me again I’m a failure
To remind me again what has been
It doesn’t always mean that it will always be this way. Does it?
Well as you say it does and lay the blame I start to heat razors in the flame,
And press the blade onto my veins to stop the flashback with the pain.
So you’ve created a being unable to express
My real emotion without bleeding.
Inside I’m crumbling and outside’s vacant
Inferior to exist only makes me seething.
You have created an anxious, self-loathing, detested little twit.
Who almost every day works just for another hit.
I’ll break myself down and rid of all shame,
Create a new image.  Be different in all but name.
But this strive for perfection will never come
And a pattern of thought becomes a reality.
If I loathe myself and hate this shame,
So I harm myself to escape this form.
And I strive for perfection and know that I can’t
And so I harm to relieve myself from this form.
Where will it end? Where will I end? When can it end?
For I would not feel like this if this were not for my shame
And I should not be here right now.
You’d have your perfection somewhere somehow
But my existence messed that up. And my existence messed it up.

Added: 20.04.2010

Judges' comments on this poem

06.05.2010

really Great work! very touching and emotional poem. i think it rare to creat such a strong poem with deep feeling inside a man. i likedit

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