I Am Martin: Part One

I Am Martin: Part One

A man of five feet tall walked into his brother’s bedroom;

his brother was slouching in his hand-carved wooden and cloth chair from France

that their mother gave to him as a twenty-fourth birthday present.

The brother in the chair was lazily reading a copy of The Brothers Karamazov,

and the brother of five feet held his notebook eagerly in his hands.

The slouching brother in the chair from Paris looked up to his roommate with eyes of apathy;

the brother of five feet tall had eyes that gleamed with enthusiasm and youth,

eyes thought to be too aloof…

his name is Martin.

“What do you want Martin?” said the brother sitting in the chair.

Martin spoke quickly with his ardency, “There’s this new philosophy I found called Satanism!”

The brother in the French chair furrowed his brow and spoke:

“And what qualities does this philosophy possess?”

“Well,” Martin said, “the Satanists were people in ancient Rome

who thought that time was fixed in place and everyone’s lives are predestined!”

The brother in the chair replied with slow in his voice: “Martin…

you’re confusing Stoicism with Satanism.”

The detached Martin shrunk into himself from fear of realization at his mistake.

He choked in a burst with his error,

the correction becoming his asphyxiation.

Martin attempted to recover himself;

attempted to become the composure his priesthood should’ve given him.

“Martin…are you okay?” the brother in the chair said with warranted concern.

Martin fidgeted in his stance;

he opened his mouth to speak: “Can we talk about my writing?”

“Sure, Martin. Go ahead.”

“I like using a lot of dramatic flair; you know,

like semi-colons,

hyphens,

and excrement points.”

The brother in the chair once again furrowed his brow and coughed because of his confusion.

“Martin,” the other replied, “you mean exclamation points.”

“What about epilepsies?”

“You mean ellipsis, Martin.”

Martin stepped into himself,

weary of the words which choose to surround him.

He nearly broke apart as he said,

“I’m dying on the inside…”

The brother in the chair finally set down his book to be thoroughly concerned.

“Ever since I was cast out of the church,”

Martin choked,

“things haven’t been going well. As a result, I’ve been writing and philosophizing quite a bit.

I’ve realized that celibacy is the worst idea in the history of humanity,

and I’m not sure why God would let us torture ourselves in such a way…

I’ve built this temple of lies around my priesthood

and now I’m witnessing its collapse,

the holy relics of Christ falling into the Undercroft of my Doubt…

I think this is what it must feel like to die;

to know that everything you’ve learned to love is perishing in the fire of numbness…

to know that,

no matter how long your corpse claws at the inside of your casket,

your soul is forced to meander around the Mausoleum that holds your dreams and hopes

deep in its granite.

My name is Martin,

and I am attempting to find the fold of God’s compassion

in the midst of this terror in which I have long been lost.”

The two of them stared to each other in silence;

Martin’s hands shook as he held tight his notebook to his heartbeat,

a pulse of blood and ink running far too uncertainly.

The brother in the chair opened his mouth and asked,

“So you need to see a therapist?”

Martin’s mind opened its floodgates

and tuned his eyes to fountains in an attempt to convey the emotions

his words seemingly could

not.

Reviews

[Little Birdie]

Very pretty.

[Coyote Poetry]

I enjoyed this poem. When we listen to another. We can open doors and maybe assist in another life. I like the questions of Martin and the answers of the brother. A very interesting poem. I hope to read more like this one. Thank you for sharing the outstanding poem.
Coyote