Carcass

Look between the indentations of
skin that has aged through
time and time and time again
until repetition no longer means
anything and you're left with
hollow eyes that used to bear
a story that no one ever told.

Left heavy on my heart is
the wolf's cry that's so tainted
by a lion's thunder and the
intimate but obnoxious
laughs of outsiders that
put themselves in a place
where they thought they belong.

The problem lies in thinking
you know a painting when the
canvas has barely felt the ink stain
and you run wild, insane with
casual beliefs that have diseased
and polluted your very existence
and punch holes in your next of kin.

Locked in the purple haze of
months and years and withered
skin, lies a carcass confused by
the harsh brutality of growing old
and unaccepted by death until the
final straw and the clock strikes ten
and you hope the gates will let you in.