The original version of Personal Best, titled Feral Eyes Familiar, has been published in All of Me Vol. II, courtesy of Shadow Spark Publishing. Featured art is by Karol Bąk.

Listen to Personal Best by Richard Charles Stevens (Death or Glory Suite)

Listen to Death or Glory by Dawnrazer

Damaged
Yes
But not beyond repair
Broken
No question
No promise of fix
Yet no need to recede to feed despair

I’ve been there
At the brink
Within the realm of self-damnation
Know well of the hell we face
When placed in isolation
Misery loves company
For pillory and plunder
Pummelling our running theme and slimming sense of wonder
Drumming into us
That we are worthless
Merely surplus
Clearly on the blink and deemed unfit to serve our purpose
Counting curses
Less so blessing
Merging burden with depression
Playing versus with progression
As it further hurts us
Dressing down
Profound belief our dreams indeed resurface
With dispossession beckoning
The stillness of our reckoning
Suggests our best defence is to confess we’re less than zero
Just another weeping willow down on luck
Dumbstruck and stuck on Skid Row
Too weary for the skip rope
Eerie theory courting chaos in our zip code
Caught in minds divided by the hard line that we cling to
Losing sight of light of day
Inviting night to wipe away all trite remaining traces of delay to take a dim view
We begin to fade
With hit parade unplayed
Relieved tuition aid
Eager for a ricochet
If only to alleviate
The bitter taste of disarray and take the expeditious way

Some of us know no real other way than stow away
Hiding places safe domains
To hibernate when veins are drained
Here we feast remains of day
To binge upon the gristle
Smell the roses
Then ensnare our noses in their thistles
Any one thought heartening is marched towards dismissal
Moot
On mute
Too doomed for full acquittal
Tension ever pressing
While compressing precious air
Caught between the head lamps with our ankles clamped in snares

Damaged
Yes
But maybe not beyond repair
Broken
No question
Scant mention of fix
At the brink
Yet still no need to feed despair

Should we jump the gun each time the dumdums hum mid enfilade
Then running to the sun need not feel quite so dumb an escapade
Trails ablaze with ways to pull the pin and sling this red grenade
Every time the planets are in retrograde
Best convey the feelings felt
That melt the need to spell defeat
Peek in the recycle bin
Click viruses
Confirm delete
Update and restart a heart
That hardly beat when teased apart
Reach into your sternum
To relieve the burden
Squeeze it hard
When the worm turns
Learn its path
Facilitate its greatest truth
Too much for one when under thumb
More cute for two to make salute
Begin within and feel each pinch
Give two fucks and several inches
Trace sensation back to sender
Burn away all bitter bridges
Love yourself and others will love you
Trust that you’re enough
And there’ll be far too much ado
For doom and gloom to reconvene a scene
As deep as it is blue
Keep the faith
Remain apace
Take leaps in heat
Make peace with fate
Esteem the team most brave and beat the steeple chase

Richard Charles Stevens

Keeper of The Crimson Quill

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