I’ve got words dripping from my hair,

I’ve got them rippling down my chest,

And laying my head to rest.

 

Yet my reservoir runs dry

As the cracked desert ground

When the moment comes

To speak this thought-fountain alive.

 

Only in ink can it flow unimpeded.

Where the drift between mind and mouth

Has collapsed, the pen prevails.

 

I’ve found that a page

can hold one breath or many;

It can encompass all there is

or the lack of it

for a soul in search of companionship

rather than answers.

 

Like the potent magus,

I can chill the blood

Or melt the heart

With little else but the perspective

Of a flawed being.

 

So I become martyr to your isolation

As I offer up my salted wisdom

With tender hopes

That it will light your path.

 

For the human experience repeats:

A scratched record of our failures

And triumphs. I persist

knowing that each one of us

has also fallen,

and I can only lift up another

from my own two feet.