the idiot

by Ivan Arena

this virgin life
of lost integrity
of love forbidden
wading through
concurrent diseases
with purple tearing
which torments my sleep
haunting my dreams
with forgotten secrets
before the gentle blade
slits my slavery
unjust, stern
mocking my youth
deceiving it
into wild old men's pain
into this vivid lethargy
where I poison my idiot self
drink, idiot, drink!

Ivan Arena is an Italian writer and multidisciplinary artist born in Messina in 2002 and based in Vienna. He writes in Italian and English. His books include the poetry collections Versi liberi (2023) and And Then We Walk Out (2025), the novel Crepuscolo (2024), and the hybrid work The Second Thought (2026). He has developed his own neo-symbolist poetics, combining surreal imagery, rhythmic repetition, and visual experimentation to explore memory, desire, displacement, and the instability of the self.