Courage to Burn
Location
I watch anguish drag it’s grubby body to my toes,
I am decidedly defenseless, and only my eyes grow wide
As the gates in my chest close
Crushing my heart and lungs in heavy encasement.
My duty is to not run from this electric place
As the dirty thing explores me,
Sliding inside me to squeeze the whimpers from my guts,
To eat the tender pleasant morsels I hold.
I mustn’t move, to prevent scars that latterly impair my motion,
And I mustn’t look away,
Instead I should watch my collective soul be savaged
So I might better decipher my chances next feeding day.
I have been subject before,
Chased and caught, already given into fear,
Found dumb with animal wrath, humiliated in daylight,
And for my struggles, punished with recurring attacks.
Those days I learned only by sneaking glances through the keyhole,
Never expecting, with all my good intentions,
That I might be condemned
To the unfortunate torture of these outdated lessons.
A mistake, a horrible accident that I should suffer,
But a chaotic world has it’s flaws; I just anticipated better.
I will consume the beauty and dodge the pain,
After all, I always said, “Thank you” and “Please come again.”
Now to be accepting, with something I hope will grow into grace,
I reluctantly offer my most gripping obsessions,
Though I am no more willing to divulge my sweetest cultivations,
I do, in faith of the only studs that survive these killings.
My cherished comfort children become blood meal
Until the monster hobbles away,
And my carcass of dry bones releases my chest,
Again exposed to the wind and rain and sun.
The spiders and the flies will return in the Spring,
And opportunity will lend the chance to reconstruct
Silvery webs of kaleidoscope patterns,
In all the space I’ve had the courage to watch cleared.
I will be bundled and coddled again, in beauty,
And for all my effort, it might not be so thin,
Because the shock scrapes the plaque from my eyes,
And I find the strength and light in my world less disguised.