A Poem to Poems

Raw intention and delicate fingers
Breed a graphite smear on the edges of furled hands.
Taste the chalk under bitten nails.
Breathe the rubber castaway words that scatter to the floor.
 
With a careful caressing of paper
You are the lure that draws me
The restraints that bind me
The blade that slays me
So I might slay others.
 
With these words
I baptize my burdens
Canonize my embellishments
Sanctify my muted screams
To a serenade tongues cower for.
 
I hold my truths and lies
To a sanctimonious ink flame
Charcoal smoke trails
Weep words of a life longing.
 
My words,
A handprint cemented in time,
Overgrown in life’s garden
That I peruse to compare new wrinkles and old scars.
 
To meander through corridors
That reignite lost sense sand castles
That time continues to erode.
 
You are the tinted lens
Through which I view my exploits
The night sky holding every super nova
That burst before my eyes.
 
My greatest hopes and darkest fears
Kept under glass
As a fragile memorial
To everything I always was and wasn’t.