I Can't Make it Any Plainer

A thin linkage

(cheap leather, metal rusted through,

hardly made to last)

clamps the soul down

to the flesh

where it sits,

uncomfortably nestled

a strong wind

could unbuckle it

and I resist

the long, thin finger

the soft and unfamiliar tug

that teases the belt

And distraction:

a blissful wave of forgetting

that I'm falling fast down

a steep ravine lined with thorns

and yes, of course,

blood drenched stalagmites at the bottom

just enjoy the ride

the wind tells me

you're young, you've got a few

moments left

and so whaat if those short harsh years

are made of ghosts

and vines and weeds and poison ivy

oozing its poison onto cracked

and too-saggy skin?

Don't worry too much

about the spikes drooling

to impale all that you are

they're still miles off, I guess

Come back down to your

body and you have to know:

it's ready and willing

(that open rancid maw smelling

sweet with sulphur and rot)

to swallow you up and

well, I think,

it won't choke on me

small and fat as I am

I'll slide down and bathe in

inevitable acid

quickly work me down to bone

and bone to dust

a preacher clad in thriftstore black

will throw fine and dark

unremarkable soil

over what's left of my soul

and I can see it all too

clearly now

21 and hurtling on

the coroner waits for no one

who cares how much my

glossy eyes scream?

He spares no one

an elegy will not

breathe the soul

back into our forms

when that day

comes

on the back of another