Gone (Revised) Poem by Margaret Alice Second

I must complain - show how insane
it is to fall into the Black Hole in my
brain - where my feelings are dead
and all prior concerns are erased -
where I can’t access my mind

It is clear an alternative personality
in there takes over when my carefully
constructed harlequin-clown persona
loses claim to this physical body and
the poor, simple zombie left robbed

Of all ability to organise & understand
how to operate in my little world - the
chemical imbalance effect induced by
eating Swiss Muesli for a week - the
allergy’s killing me, body weak, my

Thoughts toxic & sick, unable to fight
it I sit alone, fantasise about dying to
escape from physical bondage to this
allergic body - the cereal must go - my
head’s become a swollen watermelon

My brain’s alienated and it has turned
to mush; I’m in pain, depressed, dumb,
falling asleep from time to time - and I
wonder where my spirit and soul may
have gone…


Never Cereal Again

Being a martyr doesn’t make me
a better person - pain doesn’t work
for me; like steel chains around my

cranium caused by swelling until the
insides push so hard against my skull,
it feels like a train-smash in my head;

everything: every aspect of life, work,
feelings, relationships are destroyed -
and like a broken automaton I repeat

actions mechanically, making tea,
feeling worse, drinking hot chocolate
exacerbating everything, a psychopath

am I, without a single loving feeling -
neither for myself nor for others, without
anchor or lodestar, & I worked so hard

to put both in place; all will be lost until my
mind returns, I come to my senses knowing
I have learned never to eat cereal again…


Dreamed

By accepting I’m the guilty party in my bad feeling,
it is now easier to become humble & acknowledge
criticism; I had certainly earned scorn for shooting
myself in the foot eating allergenic food - got home
and accepted a glass of wine - and Nici enticed
with champagne: - now I realise that my pain is

Caused by my breaking the dietary rules - eating
cereal & wonderful corn bread my darling beloved
made, - & thickly buttered bread slices I dipped in
soup; I can revise my plan for life, start eating right
to function like a normal human being - the Swiss
muesli cereal went to the security guards

I realise suffering without explaining my feelings to
all my loved ones properly isn’t fair because I want
to communicate & relate to their feelings - my cute
little daughter, wonderful son and my sweetheart,
my darling beloved; I want to be the ME I always
dreamed I would be…