Invoking ire with reverent intent, it's recusant, it's ruthless.
Like diaphanous drum beatings I see my own bemused bruises.
Yet...
You’re unscathed, unmarred, unto induced comas in iconoclastic crux.
Cradling in the corner as you cudgel me with glass fists.
You cowardly fuck. Ruled by rage. Preordained pain.
Restored with every lascivious lash on my stone-soured proverb back.
To control is to embody chthonic levity above and beyond.
So, how low does one go?
Carving your name into my forearm , I designed your despot demise.
Surmising sums of ploys and parts, your potful plaything, quashed.
Quite the quandary.
Who will attend your procession ? When you’re prefaced in slate?
Stony-faced and tempting my tempest, I hear the choler call.
Calling my name is talismanic truth.
You slept on my weary-eyed potential in absentia, a call to action.
Cessation begets empathic deed and detritus and—
Damnation.
(c) Edward Swafford 2026
***TITLE IMAGE URL.
About the Creator
Edward Swafford
Hello! I'm an Australian writer, copywriter, and healthcare professional. I've written on Medium for over two years and also run Black Coffee Creative on Substack (over 900 subscribers).
Edgy syntax is my bailiwick.
Keep reading
More stories from Edward Swafford and writers in Poets and other communities.
Smart phones, Humans and Aliens.
WARNING. I will be tapping into one of your favorite creative tensions: The absurdity of humans worshipping their glowing rectangles as if they were tiny oracles. There’s something deliciously poetic about that contradiction, and it lends itself beautifully to an instructive proviso.
By Novel Allen5 days ago in Poets
Miss Persephone's Manual to a Seemingly Ordinary Life
Miss Persephone was found at the dining table, her blue eyes swollen, her tears arriving and retreating like the tides of the ocean. Earlier that day, her family had visited her in the retirement home where she had lived for eight years. It was her eightieth birthday.
By Imola Tóth6 days ago in Fiction
Comments (3)
The language is brutal but precise. Every line feels so intentional.
Dark, powerful, and beautifully written. I had to read it twice.
Fucking brilliant. The alliteration is so my thing with a little hint of internal rhyme sneaking in through a window. And the language, I'm swooning.