Special Presentation
By Evil Jim
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Once upon a mid October, I was slowly getting sober
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And the eve was almost over with my liquor cabinet bare.
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Nearly passed out on the floor I heard a Pounding at the door.
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I held my ears and cried, “No more!” pulling out my thinning hair.
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Surely it must be the devil asking entrance to my lair.
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I knew it so and did not care.
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I rolled my eyes, stared at the ceiling, counted paint chips that were peeling
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But I could not shake this feeling that my fate was getting near.
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As the air continued cooling, I noticed not that I was drooling.
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I did not know who I was fooling, for myself I did not care-
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Perhaps time had finally stopped-and died but still I did not care.
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If I was done, I’d paid life’s fair.
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Pounding Pounding at the door, I seized my tortured head once more.
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I knew what it was looking for, my senses now became aware.
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I clutched and crawled my body near, I did not know what I should fear.
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I would make my vision clear and at this strange newcomer stare.
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I would send this fiend away and turn again into my lair.
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Perhaps I could find peace in there.
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The carpet soft against my face, time was passing without trace,
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I had to win this horrid race and finally leave this black nightmare.
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I nearly heard a voice right then, bellowing across my den,
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Her screeching voice, “Drunk again?” Thankfully she wasn’t there.
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She left me far and long ago, I knew it so and did not care.
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Life alone-I did not care.
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Struggling, crawling all the while. Grappling with this final mile.
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Moving slow with little style. I had to move, it wasn’t fair.
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My hair was hanging in my eyes, I wondered if I soon would die.
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It would come as no surprise if my torture ended there,
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But still I lived-it was not fair.
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Pounding Pounding once again, my crawl was coming to an end.
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I held my tortured head again and cursed the pain that hid in there.
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Throbbing in between my ears, it had not been this bad for years.
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I blindly touched my newfound tears and sobbed a hitching breath of air.
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Who could be this wretch entreating entrance to my lair?
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This I found I did not care.
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My fingers brushing at the door, I tried to reach a little more,
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But I was sprawled out on the floor and could not open it from there.
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I moaned and begged to my own knees to push me up, support me, please.
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I knew that I just had to see this stranger at my lair.
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If the Pounding would not stop my sanity would tear.
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This was all that I did care.
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On my knees I almost prayed, I reached ahead with fingers splayed
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And brushed the knob of freedom’s gate above the keyhole’s mindless stare.
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I held the knob within my hand, I held it so and then began
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To turn it slow with shaking hand, the wait I could not bear.
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Open wide I swung the door and to the darkness I did stare.
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I smiled and laughed, a moment rare.
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Once again the Pounding came and once again I felt the pain
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Within my tightly tortured brain, I felt the madness growing there.
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All the time I’d been abating, through the while that I’d been waiting,
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All the Pounding I’d been hating, all the answeres were right there.
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Here it was before me now, the answer in the air-
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Should I look? I did not dare.
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I collapsed, my madness laughed. I knew that I just had to have
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One more chance, one to last to make my vision clear.
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The Pounding Pounding once again, did not come from out my den
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But from within, within my head. I knew it then and there.
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Soberness began to spread ‘cause life just isn’t fair.
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I know it now and do not care.
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10.31.97
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© 1997 Evil Jim
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