The Poet in Me

The poet in me croaks,

he stays in bed while I work again.

My skin sits, flaming,

while my dreams carry me deeper

into my illusions.

Tonight the fact struck me like

an escaped lightning bolt:

someday, we all will die.

A grim thought always known but

so infrequently felt,

now ravenous and keen, my knees weak

head spinning with the feelings of fire,

lightly dizzy.

The poet in me bleeds

while more notes are blown away

by gentle winds

pouring through the open gaps in my home

I can’t afford to attend to,

not quite unstable enough

to be worth the struggle to help.

The poet in me dies,

the curse never lifting,

I cut the wood to build my coffin

just outside the window

while the poet in me sleeps

so unsoundly,

I engrave false names into the headstone

any name but my own,

and hide again behind my cowardice.

The poet in me lies still,

relieved in death as

I, too, expect to be,

no afterlife, no energy

other than that

which is returned to this Earth

I once loved,

this Earth

I still love

this Earth

I now feed

this Earth

which was stolen from me,

by a thousand pains which seemed

impossible to overcome,

shadowboxed mirrors

the least

of my problems.