Life Is Never Lasting

I teeter on a knife edge

Above the swirling vortex

At the beginning of creation

At the end of civilization.

I fold into myself

My skin is a tapestry

Of my anguish

A timeline

Of sorrows rent.

I cull my demons

They latch on harder

Like starving leeches

No exorcism leaves the soul

Like it was before it was captive

Like cancer

The sorrow swims through the blood

Accumulating like snowflakes

Blocking light and joy.

Creative flow unyielding

My inspiration well is dry

I sleep in restless turns

Yet I feel drained

I wish for clarity

And bones that do not ache

A heart that does not drag

Under the weight of minute mistakes.

I cleave onto bitterness

Hopes that such will eke out

Fruit from its low-hanging branches

I fear to fall asleep

Into unfamiliar visions of strange machinations

My past of twisting brambles

A future of chaos and oppression.

I cannot fulfill this emptiness

That burrows like moles in the earth

No divinity ever completed me

Nor potent drink

Or pleasures in excess

I am a trembling aster

Leaves fall among weeds like bombs.

Fall's confetti, precursor to frost

I die slowly and painfully

Recede into the ground

For life is never lasting.