Starting to realize now, I’ve got this sickening fascination
with leaving cathartic messages,
carving them into my walls with pain and paint,
a combination so tepid that the plaster’s peeling like colorless waterfalls.

There’s ink in my mouth, and I can’t get it out
(not that I’d want to anyway,
now that I’ve grown accustomed to the comfortable taste
of poetry on my tongue);

and it’s of  use, by its own rite, of course,
for when the acrylics have dried or simply run out
I can spit a darker art onto the canvas -
the relief of my every waking nightmare pinned and dissected on the table,
like an animal exposed.

But, who is the animal?

If I could bite down or shove a covered foot into my mouth
to keep myself from speaking,
I would’ve pursued a career as a mime, but,
since I’ve never been able to do either,
language has found its home in my aching heart.

And yet still…

I’ve often thought to take that familiar needle,
which I have used both to create and pick apart,
apply the thread, and pierce the flesh,
suturing my biggest and most disappointing mistake…

Oh! muses!
Why am I left to deprecate my only delights?

If my lips never parted,
never allowed a single syllable to pass,
who would be the wiser?