Dylan Hembrough
Realness, Part II
I longed to dissolve into the ether,
The cold fork of time upon my vein.
I yearned not for death but relief
From twenty thousand years of pain. 
I was too far gone within my mind, 
Up to my neck in such toxic flood.
On my tiptoes in the roiling sea around,
My masterpiece, a mosaic of blood. 
I screamed in the vacuum of space, 
Precious air lost for naught to hear. 
I waved and signaled to all for help, 
My messages all apparently unclear. 
I dreamed but little of earthly paradise,
A plane I was convinced was unreal. 
What dreams there were of happiness,
The present seeped in, my fate to seal. 
I was phasing out of existence itself,
Embodied naught but solemnity. 
If this, all this, was madness incarnate,
Is it even possible to reach sanity?
Author's Note
"Realness, Part II" was inspired by Hembrough's father's poem "Realness," originally written in 1991. The original poem was written during a low period in the writer's life characterized by incessant stress and feelings of extreme depression, as was this contributor's "sequel."
Dylan Hembrough
Dylan Hembrough (he/him) is a first-year pharmacy student and editor-in-chief of The Alestle, the SIUE student newspaper. Hembrough has been writing poetry since 2017 and has published three books to date. Hembrough lives with his fiancée, Van Cory, and cat, Maple, on campus.