Life More Casual Poem by Patti Masterman

Life more casual when not writing;
Take off the white formal shirt, worn in effigy
Slip into something more smooth cliche; nothing heavy or stiff,
Something light, moves along with you, yet never constrains:
Downtime more cherished, as writing grows more obsessive;
The outside world is in tatters, more unreal than ever
And you find that you don't read for enjoyment anymore;
Got to get the fix of an idea, each hour,
Afraid you might just cease to exist
Without the warming momentary flash of words, circuiting the vessels.

Some select opiate, handcrafted only for you
By evil, over-intelligent doctors (is there any other kind?)
Who never did seem to have your best interests at heart,
And who always watch above, through the dungeon's window
Busy writing in those notebooks: recording every eye blink and twitch,
Their personal morse code, of your most secret being
Though you are never allowed to read it, of course,
And even if you did; you would find only prime numbers;
Some square roots, integers of more nothingness-

The same nothing of which your now dryly heaving soul
Must have originally been composed
At some ungodly, belated hour, in a predestined universe
Gone horribly off track; and if you ever stopped writing
Even long enough to take a deep breath,
You know what would happen then.

All the creatures you've given birth, through your pen
Would soon appear, outside your cell, to menace you and howl,
For your pseudo writer's blood, their stains serving as witness
And prosecution, judge and jury,
To your own souless, toxic brand of imagination's ink;
Wishing to revenge themselves, on your burgeoning heartless fecundity,
Your meaningless cruelty of an instant, or an hour;
Though by this time, you would have long ago forgotten
That you are the one needs protection, from them.