FIVE DAYS Poem by Claudiu Komartin

Today I woke up knowing everything,
though I'd prefer anything to that:
to take, at last, a deep breath,
to be able to unwind a good thought inside the walls of my skull.
I wish my clothes didn't smell of mildew and sweat,
that rumble growing louder in my head,
not just firecrackers and sparklers, as on Christmas,
as if someone was hysterically beating
the walls of a huge, empty vessel
with his fists.

For five days, I know:
I'm the envelope of anthrax you receive some Thursday at the office.
I'm your envious whine.
I'm the razorblade under your tongue.
I'm all the things you like, all that's cancerous and obscure.
Will you remember me, supermarket man?
I'm nobody. I think I'm the devil incarnate.
I'm the dry cough you cannot shake.
I'm the meanness and hatred of the year 2005.

For five days it's fever and loneliness.
For five days only pigs and night before my eyes,
the red of insomnia
and hot tea, my body coiled under sheets
run through with thick, devastating phlegm.
For five days my thin arms
reach out purposely towards nobody

because I am nobody
and the world is my kingdom.