a thorny midnight 
pricks my innocence — 
bleeding profusely,
exposing me to a guilty conscience; 
a single candle’s flame 
flickers in the icy breeze, 
a drop of ink on soiled paper 
leads the reader to my untamed imagination; 
a thousand tongues 
cannot paint 
a dreamy picture 
worth a thousand ugly words; 
what is this atrocity 
that beckons me, 
this hatred that prevails 
within my wretched soul - 
my broken psyche 
assumes a calm tenderness 
and stitches the gashes 
in the fabric of time.