As I sit here, trying to bleed elegance into my tongue -
Run it fluent over soft emphatic words to sluice away misgiving,
I am bereft of eloquence, robbed of my poetic spine.
There rests a vulgarity upon my shoulder as a devil
Should haunt that of the wicked.
It speaks to me;
Chilling the blood and my fingers with its melancholy;
A sweet sorrow, a sirens delicate bequest.
Something all the cigarette smoke of the world
Could not cease.
Rasping sepia rust through my bewildered veins.
Whispering atrocious nothing-songs in my ear.
Slowly breaking down my psyche;
Leaving the skeleton of doubt to obscure the thought.
And though I should wield up my sword,
No ink should pass its length with purpose.
All but brittle leaves caught in an early July storm.
Nothing but forgotten bones a'neath the soil.
And soon I should fear a cemetery for heart,
For without my words it breathes without air -
And sweet poetry no longer slakes its thirst.
Surely, this pervading sickness, perversely self-imbued;
And but God, I wish it was not mine to bear.
I am but a child in the arms of the universe.
But a fleeting gust of bittersweet
That should flow through the aether.
I merely pray it cannot break me
Before I am freed from its hallowed grip.

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