Deliverance

The sickly sweet of something drifting in;

A strengthening of sentiment, but…

Subtle….something else…

An ashen stinging that accompanies the warmth I covet

And its cutting covenant.

Stuck within it, suckling at substances

that bring a shadowed nothing;

Emptiness and other, brother to my suffering,

Rubbing up against my shoulders,

Twisting into bits within my smoldering

Eye sockets tired of the driving dark,

And pining after possibilities that seem

Improbable

Except in chemical indulgences

That tease my wits apart;

That leave me stranded and demanding

In these solemn pits,

And wishing I was more.

Wishing that I fit.

Waiting and debating,

Desperately I'm praying,

As I dread the payment that my mind imagines

Is in store.

I crave another hit of Grace.

I'm crazed from all this gazing in abyss,

Made into a mockery of answers

To my lock and key; amiss;

Droning on in confines

Of lies I tell,

Smoothing over overtones,

Armoring perception that's still moaning,

On and on,

Yawning as I groan and flee.

Please, may peace be here –

May I, yet, be free.

May there, maybe, be a chance to glance beyond

This miserable, intransigent, decree?

How and how, and why?

My mind and all it's mechanism, crying

Out in stubborn jest

That tests the lessons that the Gods

Have sent me.

I wonder what, and where I'll see;

Who knows the opening,

That leaves a parting through these daunting trees,

Broken as a birch branch trodden on,

Underfoot and somber as a battle cry

To find the folly that I follow,

And wave goodbye to all this sorrow

That imprisons me?

Apologies to those I knew;

The Fate that slew me was this hand of mine.

Decried by circumstances that I set in motion

As I tried to fly the coop,

And dined on tragic tithes

I paid to blind, irrational decision,

And schisms plain as day;

What pain that I placate,

What part I play,

What magic and what monsters,

Stirring up concertos and their baritone debasings ever longer;

What hell did I create?

And where, in stalwart staring,

Can I find release from being chained

To that which pleases,

And my neediness,

My heedless words and worries –

Actions that enact my treasons?

Dreams that sour in the setting sun,

Hour after hour,

Powerless and proud as powder in a smoking gun.

Now or never.

Never mind the mess that's left;

I wrest my rigors from the fatal flavors,

Towering and dour, and the

Smatterings of mad duress.

Where, and where within

May life release me

From this motley plot,

It's caustic cost,

And all of my chagrin?

It cannot be for naught.