It’s nails slide down the glass as if
with one swoop
they could slit a hole in the window
Just large enough to slip through, suffocate me with my own pride.
Gagging.
Gasping.
Unable to overcome
Asphyxia of the spirit.
Beasts.
Monsters.
They pound,
louder, Louder
LOUDER
an avalanche rumbling and rolling and tumbling down from hell to bury me in the bodies of
my own adversaries.
And my thoughts. And my words.
My words.
They poison me, dripping with the sweet enticing syrup of presumption and superiority.
They poison me. They slither from my mouth and coil around stomach, squeezing me tighter and tighter, forcing out every last letter, every final consonant and dramatic pause until I fall lifeless to the linoleum.
And even then I cannot escape the exile felt by the lone poppy dropped by a dove, into dead fields winter.
Or perhaps, tossed into the wind by an unforgiving gardener, unsure how such a delicacy found its way into the pouch of corn seeds.
Or perhaps
those are just my own beliefs.
Perhaps the rain clouds only part so that not all life will be lost.
Perhaps the mountains are so grand and tall only so that the brightest and the fairest and the most foolish will reach the top
to slip and stumble back to the bottom.
Perhaps the sun shines
on only the grass beneath their feet,
and the river is only to reflect the wonders of the sky.
Perhaps the sonata he plays in the parlor was written for his grandson who passed of cholera near after birth,
or the fiancé who disappeared with the artist days before the wedding.
Perhaps the mirrors only scrutinize,
look on with disapproval,
and words are only to bring forth
silence.