Something really bizarre happened to me today. I was reorganizing my blog, categorizing posts and whatnot, and I was way back in the 2010 range adding categories to stuff when I happened upon a private post. I don’t write private posts. Sometimes, I’ll write drafts that sort of function as private posts, but that is very uncommon.

So, naturally, I was somewhat curious as to what to what it was, as I didn’t remember having a private post at all. I opened it, and found a poem I have never before laid eyes on that was simply called “Untitled.” It actually sounds fairly similar to some things I’d written a few months earlier, but there are several things in it that I never would’ve written. I also don’t use private posts, don’t call things “untitled,” and don’t write a poem on my blog, omit it from my poetry journal, omit it from my poetry computer files, and then forget it ever existed.

So, below is the poem that I found. I’m sort of at a loss. If anyone has any idea what occurred here, I’d love to know.

Untitled

I’ve been to this place before.
I keep promising myself I won’t come back.
It’s like a nightmare that keeps coming back to you
Or one that you can never really get out of to begin with.
You keeping waking up
And waking up
And waking up
And finding yourself exactly where you started.
It’s ugly
Beautiful from far away—you think it’s somewhere else
But when you get here
You realize that it’s sharp and acid and claustrophobic.
The glinting sunlight cuts like a knife
And when you go out one side, you come right back in the other
Shredded to pieces as it tears and tears and tears away
But there’s always more for it to destroy
Because when you think you have nothing left
Still it takes away.
I’ve been here before.
Why have I been here before?
Why does it look familiar?
Why do I keep coming back?
Deja vu.
I want to walk away
Walk out
But it’s like my own personal prison, designed especially for me
That will find me no matter where I go.
Clutching and grasping and scratching and restraining and pinning down
My tears are bitter, traitorous, unwarranted
It’s my fault, anyway
My fault that I can’t get out of it.
It’s not your fault, even though you’re the one who brought me back.
This place has a thousand faces
A thousand poisoned honeys
A thousand smiling traps.
I can’t blame you or her or anybody
Everybody has their prison
Their trap
Their quicksand beckoning them to come just a little closer
And this
Is mine.