Part 2 (The Afternoon After)

twenty five.

The empty.

My little bruised words

(In the spaces between which -- or whom there was always room to breath)

Collect now, fermenting in the pit

Of my stomach, coating

The hot red lining of my throat 

Or --

They hang suspended like dust

In melancholy

Mid-afternoon air

Taint the sun with the greying of their hair

This midafternoon --

(This midwinter's madness)

I am catatonic, mindless

I am spineless

And my spiky grey scrawl no more

Alleviates with blindness

The draw 

To turn my head back 

On a makeshift Sodom and Gomorrah 

To see what my world is,

But more often than not, 

Is not. Still, 

Would I rather have it on fire?

(Like in the stories)

Trade it for this agitation, this -- repose of absolution, of reality

In actuality I wouldn't choose the gore

Still, the acuteness of my own abnormality, glares nefarious

She is no specter anymore

No -- my hands don't turn to salt

Of seizing what they crave
They're clean

At night I dream of holding them steady

Before my eyes in a darkened room

And sitting on a darkened stair

Illuminated suddenly

To see -- they are not there