House of Horrors
the mind is a palace
the mind is a house of horrors
most hospitable to any travellers
regardless of the duration of their stay,
make your memories
clean the dirty sheets
return the keys
be on your way
but the mind is at overcapacity
with unwelcomed visitors
overstaying their customary welcome,
some days
when there is light outside
and they choose to leave for excursions
across the Atlantic where it is night of day
I lock their rooms
and for a while
there is peace in the palace
but when they return from excursions brief
they bring with them ten times the grief
and as a weary innkeeper
I sit in the dark of the night
when silence meanders into isolation
and that is when
the squatters make their move for
the keys I have carelessly left unchecked,
as I am lulled slowly to
the realm of dreams and devices
I am woken by -
the knells
by the clattering of plates
by the aquatic force of faucets
released and curbed
all at once
or the more devious variation
one by one
stopping and starting
stopping, starting
a symphony of the deranged,
by the marching beat
of evil feet
by the flickering of lights
within the palace
that force drunkenness into my flight upstairs,
and in this state
i am forced to care for their needs
endless frustrating gargantuan needs
each night, every night
sleepless and tired into the next day
slowly tearing away at my patience
and my mental fabric
these days however tiring they might be,
are days that are manageable
partly due to slumbering at the right time
on the clock,
however on days
when the key snaps, inside the lock,
the broken metal
unleashes the reckoning,
it pushes me to the brink,
that is when I need help,
need help to simply sleep,
The mind is a palace
occupied each night, every night
By unholy guests fictional beasts
and insidious insects
that lay into the sanity
of the weary innkeeper,
that burrow out from within
the eyes of the comatose
the mind is a house of horrors.
Maulik is a writer, poet and meme enthusiast whose raw and frank writing style connects us readers with our often repressed dark side, enabling us to face our demons head on, breaking down our doors of denial one poem at a time.
