Cursive lightning striking neon plinths
               a monolithic symphony in
                              a fight of hand and mind, fisting deep
                                             inside fragile halls where mystery
                              and misery’s stone walls crashing sound
               a knell when doubt is thrashing around
in the fool to whom they belong and
               there is no understanding between
                              the two, since without a heart neither
                                             has a guide, since god enters a room

                                                                 as light, and walls divide, conquering
                                                                                an island such a fool becomes where
                                                                                               he exiles himself, expecting truth
                                                                                                              to abound in a tomb he carves from
                                                                                               his old wounds, hearing in his kingdom’s
                                                                                hollow shell a chorus pouring forth
                                                                 an unauthorized performance, words
                                                                                friction versifies with defiant
                                                                                               dissonance, every inch of my
                                                                                                              perfidy I never imagined

could be silent and so resounding,
               that my wide audience would relate
                              to the immortal loner I made
                                             of my pain, while my pen’s own dull blade
                              pulls from my hesitation to be
               identified as him dark-hearted
blood staining everything I ink,
               pervading what I thought my art hid
                              well, and I do still, undefeated
                                             until my personal hell revealed

                                                                 how I became this war’s battlefield,
                                                                                my body soulless, desperately
                                                                                               weak, in need of a donor, filthy
                                                                                                              where my morals once were, hurrying
                                                                                               to cover those holes where burying
                                                                                what makes me mortal only hurt me
                                                                 more, converting vanquished vice into
                                                                                another whenever anguish seemed
                                                                                               certain to resurface, what bleak things
                                                                                                              I have been through somehow always do,

and so pugilizing my firm mind,
               I beat him with this ring, purpling my
                              lips as I speak lies, drinking of my
                                             weakness like wine as I write-off his
                              kisses as tests, afraid artifice
               is my only chance at knowing love,
that my heart has rotted inside its
               fleshy fortress, for so long unmoved
                              because I have prized his solitude
                                             more than what forgiveness opens up.