The writing community on Twitter is a place where you can read beautiful words, showcase your work and meet lovely people. Just last week, while promoting my zine on twitter, I checked all three when I stumbled across poet Darren Hobson. The below poem, Flames of the Furnace chimes with me, and with Darren’s permission I’m reposting it on Hopezine.com in the hope it will chime with you too. You can read the original and check-out Darren’s work here.

Without further ado:

FLAMES OF THE FURNACE

by DARREN HOBSON

When energy is low
Chores to do
Your mind is active
But legs are jelly
You sit like a zombie
In front of the telly

You know you can’t stay here
So many things to do
You have got to find some energy
To get yourself through
The furnace

Trying to keep yourself above water
You have a reputation to keep
Trying to make a dent in a diamond
Just with bare clenched fists
You’re bleeding again and raw
Bones aching so sore
Trying to follow other people’s rules
Why don’t they clean away their tools

When society is a ball of barbed wire
The stress levels go up as you tire
Defences are down open yourself up
Bruises appear deep infected cuts
At the end of the day exhausted
Your mind pleads for more sleep
Health levels plummet to a new low
Appearances that you have to keep

You know your not wanted here
People glad to see you down
The drag you further down to their level
To the dark basement
To the furnace

And they admire all your pain
Enjoy watching you bleed
Mutter as you drown your sorrows
But don’t react to your needs
You are only fuelling their stupidity
Between the coal and charcoal
Burning up in the furnace
Recreating your own hell

You only react when you hit rock bottom
Everything is placed in perspective
Under your skin it feels like a thousand needles
Every move is subjective
What can extinguish the furnace
With the fire that burns inside
What can you bring you back to earth
When there is a vacuum behind your eyes

Are you ready to come back to us
Or have you just painted over the cracks
Sellotaped the fragile China back together
While you prepare for another panic attack
The acid burns deep inside of you
As you try to hold your anger at bay
Trying not to react to the mass hypocrisy
Then we are subject to every day

You don’t want to seem unforgiving
You might get called an attention seeker
Off screen you might be volatile and screaming
The same weak day time drinker
You can feel it in every single muscle
The veils lethal that crawl into your mind
Slowly and surely the shutters close
Not seeing sense rage makes you blind

You did it to yourself
And you don’t know why
You tried to heal others
The others passed you by
You made someone happy
You didn’t share your fears
Why does everything fade away
Positivity explodes into tears

A collection of ideas becomes a poem
Verses of fears and trepidation
Anxiety does want my jealousy to rule
Everything else is fragile and cruel
I could write a thousand books
But the real poems stay in my head
I pretend to be still in one piece
While I murder myself in my bed

As I’m laying here in many pieces
The cats look on in astonishment
They sense there is something wrong
They think I’ve lost the plot
As an unknown person clears the debris
Of what remains of my fragile life
Bags me up into some old potatoe sack
And throws my pieces into the furnace

And I’ll burn again
Never to return again?
But this is a horror story
The stench and the filthy and gory
Plotlines rewritten
Like the daleks that survive
Radioactive mutations
I’m coming back alive

Sew myself back together like Frankenstein
I still have more poetry inside of me
I’m going to share with the world my fears
I hope they can relate with what I see
I have the twisted scars on my abdomen
I have a new wave of poetic digress
It’s not going to be pretty or romantic
Maybe just one huge glorious mess

When you have reached the world beyond
Then you return back to humanity
You have the right to inform everyone
Map out the pitfalls for everybody
Some people don’t return from the furnace
So many have succumbed to their flames
Some of us manage to crawl back wearily
To rebuild our egos once again

I’m not asking for gifts or any flowers
I’m not pleading for hugs and friendship
I just want someone help me translate
What every sensitive person is going through
I’m not the one who needs to survive
I’m going to fight this and keep you all alive
I belief you are the ones that are necessary
I’m showing everyone else that in my poetry.