Narcissist

Don’t tell me to roll with the punches

and don’t lecture me with  

supercharged sepulchral rhetoric

about the curses and blessings of life.

Posturing is the seedling of toxicity

and gesturing is the mother of pomposity,

but you wouldn’t know about that

existing in your world of endless personal imagery.

Your lime juice sense of entitlement

and distorted chilli pepper logic

congeals in your bubble gum brain

like acid pips in a rotten core

Take your arrogance for a long walk

and watch the filament of your empathy

uncoil behind you like a rusted fuse wire

I know what you are and so do you.

The Denial of Darkness

While contemplating

the hypersensitivity of others

I became hypersensitive

to modern etiquette

and subsequently terrified

of transgressing a rule

about which I am

yet to be informed

so,

I closed my eyes

only to discover that

the complete Book of Revelations

was written in pen

on the inside of my eyelids.

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Henry is a writer, poet and mental health essayist based in Somerset in the UK. He has a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Birmingham. His latest poetry collection is a collaboration about mental health with Dutch artist Marcel Herms and is available from Egalitarian Publishing.