Algolagnia

 Beauty does not beget the beautiful.

Rather, it is born in the harshest climes,

in treacherous and wretched terrains

inhabited by phantoms, by demons, with great fiends

lurking in the shadows. It can only be gotten

by the suicidal, ready to give their lives,

and the sick minds who thrive among the horrors.

 

The truest, most profound secrets of philosophy

hide in the darkest crags to be found

by those so afflicted that they'd rather reside in dreadful solitude

searching for wisdom than be safe among man.

 

The poet, too, to be at their best,

must reside in a flat circle of misery,

a state of perpetual heartache and agony

driven like Yeats by a lover who wouldn't trade talent for joy.

 

As such, most euphoric release comes

only with your teeth planted sharply in my shoulder,

claws raking my back, and your hair gripped tightly in my fist.

***

(Angoche, Mozambique -- March, 2017)

I heard a podcast or something about how W.B. Yeats' girlfriend dumped him because his poetry sucked when he was too happy (don't fact check that), and given my inclination at that point in my life to indulge in my own depression and anxiety, that resonated with me. My apologies to any family members that read this poem.