The Pathos of Fracture
I look down into
My hollow chest
Lined with glowing coals
Red and black and
Red and black
Sullen darkness doesn’t slowly descend
It accelerates
Unbidden like some thrashing tormentor
That bludgeons itself into my living room
Demanding to be fed
I am suddenly old; I spend all my time with
The broken boy who lives here
Raging now on smoldering regret and shame
He has lost even the smallest impulse
To untangle himself
Permanent and impermeable, anguish
Propagates at the speed of sound
It fragments any season onto itself
Each fractal forms an intimate mirror
They are all sharp and small and pernicious
Someone tell me
I can yearn for something
Unreachable, unforsaken
Close the jagged hole and
Find an agreeable spot to lie down
Abandoned or not abandoned,
It is left to me to sweep up the
Million gleaming splinters
