Unclaimed territory terrifies me,
unwritten stories lacking character
implore my trespass where forests author
darker misfortune than I can conjure,
pulling hard to their damp floor a victim
sacrificial for a moment until

unknown arms hold me prisoner, until
art’s torn from my poems and words kill me
with a weapon none of my characters
have enough courage to hold, their author
an image cold mist conspires to conjure,
clouds of fists themselves the dewfall’s victim.

                    Through impure distance vision blurs victims,
memory evidence of life until
existence becomes incredible—‘Me?’
I ask my mind’s wilderness, characters
witness to what any other author
would consider accomplishment, but for

their roles as accomplices in what for
a career I have called brilliance, victim
genius bruised by my arrogance until
mourning light burns through lines concealing me,
revealing vulnerable character
paining an impenetrable author.

                    In my heart’s thicket I catch an author
foraging for what I bury there, for
what confession martyrs him, makes victim
of his independence, wounds hid until
red earth opens and spills them, holes in me
where love should be welcomed, but characters

stoke them, lonely furnaces character
created for one purpose fills, author
incendiary because he falls for
an ideal instead of healing, victim
to threats of my own invention until
misery and Narcissism swallow me.

                    I must claim my sorrow hollowing me
                    before what it takes makes it an author
                    of my destiny, my fame its victim.