the [bad word] of a coarse drape against an open wound, which will seal itself in wilted skin
and plummet into a mine of violent isolation, where the oracles are swallowed, broken teeth
and shivering organs harmed by the frankness of rage
jarred and transformed into rigid, immovable stone.

The sage [bad word] in the pit of his throat guards against the output of hope
and he maniacally dances in a river of depraved, life-denying conclusions
whose tributaries spread deprivation and the mangled shadows of his flailing, barbarous limbs
flickers of weak, damp electricity in a condemned building
whose tenant brandishes bouquets of unnatural deadness and rests in slabs of seconds.

Cross-eyed from dementia, veins either frigidly inactive or pulsating uncontrollably,
he quivers in [bad word] moment
as spiders graze upon his shoulder, extract his blood in the [bad word] of daylight
and he yields to annihilation's crawl.

On clear nights he dissipates into thousands of salmon-colored specs
and plasters his body to a remote stone wall, to hear the faint sounds of a pipe organ
which with each pressed pedal, resuscitates his tired lungs with vibrant air [bad word] the prisons of cacophonous thought, pausing the clamor of exhausted shoes
flooding his garden of embitterment.

But when the sensation has diminished, he feels unworthy of pleasure
a dragon whose heart has burst
from guarding alone a cache of treasure
that no one values and no one visits.

Omens appear above me, threading the borders of reality and boundless chaos
the stirring evidence of our dialogue, a cross-dimensional collage
pasted by stable, determined hands, which expand and creak like aging floors
intent on sharing the pains of growth.