Noel Negele

Ennui and bad and jaded poetry

My room looks like
Three uneducated 
Gypsies live there.

My piss has an
Unhealthy color.
I function, I talk
With people at work
I wash myself 
and work seven days 
A week
Because I can’t stand 
To be alone with myself 

Books are good 
Company. Good
Music is important
In everyone’s life.

Some people feel
Regenerated after
A bath.
Some people
will smile and yawn
And stretch with delight 
For the new day in the morning
In their warm beds.

I look at the night 
Becoming a grey 
And cold dawn 
Through my window.
I do twenty push ups 
And laugh at this 
Exercise in futility 
As if I’ll take care of myself
A twenty five kilos bag 
Of protein still sits in my closet 
Unopened three months later.

My body is crooked.
I need a chiropractor.
I need a friend. 
I put my working boots on.
I take what makes me
Productive, what makes
Me talk with people 
Easily, people I don’t know
Or care about or like,
The pills that give me enough
Life to flirt with the Brazilian girls 
At work.

Fluoxetine and diazepam 
My good friends, my only assistance, the reaching
Hand that helps me.
Codeine sometimes at night 
To drown all the thoughts 
Into the jaded swamp
Of no-thinking.

There’s a pattern 
At work. 
I go to the bathroom
And take my diazepam
I hold the reaching hand tight
I don’t want the grip to loosen 
Arielin introduced herself to me.
What a name.
What a girl.

I keep it together. 
The misery is well hid.
The mask of normality 
Worn well as well.
The boredom of life.
Why do I have to feed myself.
It’s hard work. 

At the clinic the person 
Has a kind and eager face
Behind a counter and 
A plastic surface. 
I talk through a
A small hole with
My mask on my chin.

I need a psychiatrist.
I have to almost yell it
For him to listen. 
What type of symptoms 
He asks.

Anxiety, overstimulation,
Existential despair, 
Thanatophobia and self hate.
I wake up in the morning 
And I don’t won’t to wake up
In the morning. 
I don’t want to be.

I only say
Let’s just say I’m depressed
And probably have been
For a decade and it’s time 
To try this awful process.
These pills can fuck with your 
Sex drive you know.

Have you ever been
On medication before
He asks.

I was prescribed seroxat 
And Xanax. Didn’t take them.

I’m either afraid all the time
Or don’t care at all about anything.
I think. Can I break
This plastic surface with my elbow?

A doctor calls me later.
She can’t give me diazepam
But only fluoxetine.
Diazepam is highly addictive 
She says.

No shit, I think to myself.
I’m 60 mgs a day.
But it helps to flirt with 
Arielin. What a name.
What s face. What a beautiful
Cunt at times.
She said all the Chinese 
Workers looks the same to her
And laughed.
She told me I look young for my age.
I told her she looked older for hers
Arielin laughed. A nice laugh. 
She’s so beautiful she knows 
It’s bullshit. But I don’t pamper her
Like everyone else does. 
I tease her for being lazy. 
I ignore her when needed.
She is hooked you see.
I got her frying in the pan.
I’m hooked with the diazepam.
It’s the hand that helps me.
I might have an exotic warm 
Body in my bed.
I might be happy some day
Or at least okay.

Never mind I tell the doctor 
On the phone. I’ll just get them
Myself.

A day off means pregabs 
And joyful loneliness in
My room. Music is important 
In my life. 

There’s a bud of weed
In my drawer so big
It’s a shame I’ll have to tear
It apart and smoke it.

Good sleep is important
Why can’t I cherish what
I got?

Such a large void.
A black hole can be made 
By compressing anything 
Long enough.

I take vitamins too.
I laugh every time I take them.
But I take them.
So much wasted time.
So much bad time.

I lock my door in the morning
With a crooked key.
These random things can happen
If you’re all fucked up.
I step down the stairs 
And out into the world.
Ready to face it all
and not snap at anybody.

Love is important. 
All my family is spread
Around the globe.
Video calls can’t 
Be as wholesome
As the hug of your brother 
The embrace of your mother
The handshake of your father

I miss everyone 
And everything
All the time.

I feel nostalgia every day.
The one thing 
The meds can’t seem to kill.

I don’t mind it.