Ordinary Person

I used to play football in  

a sports complex all those 

years ago, and there was  

a laughter group who’d  

roar, cackle, shout and scream,  

ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,  

and though they hadn’t

diagnosed me yet,

my depression began  

assailing me then, making me 

wonder how these people could 

laugh their problems away, as if 

a smile or a snigger could change

the direction of the arrows aimed 

at them. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, for fucks  

sake! Stop! I’ve known meandering  

streets going nowhere surrounded 

by crumbling brownstones like 

stonewashed Lego bricks toppled 

with a thrust. A push similar to 

when my father hurled me against  

the cupboard and my ears bled,  

a shove like his smooth, white  

hand, pure as milk to the ignorant 

observer, pressing my face until

I fell on the couch. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. 

I looked at these weird people,  

mostly old,

probably senile and  

pictured their lives, punctuated by  

work, farts, sleep and the morning 

routine of hahas. As I kicked the ball,  

another poor game because panic  

seized me like an omnipotent  

claw from the earth devouring  

the journeyman—the stuff of myth  

and the four horsemen and  

destruction,  

I smiled, not because their laughter 

was infectious, but because my  

self-pity had turned

into an avalanche,  

a maelstrom uprooting sense 

and sanity, convex and concave  

mirrors, broken guitars, smashed 

laptops and delirium, the world 

without a blur penetrating the world 

within or the other way round, 

and with each hee, a stumble into  

delusion’s hall, with each ha, a fall 

into insanity’s piss-stained bathroom,

graffiti on the walls and shit  

on the roof, and with each haw, a  

need to escape it all, but not strong  

enough to make me quit

and never come back.