‘flames always thirsting for freedom,
the only liberty artists
have is to live differently,
victims of the very system which

makes them all famous, the only
foreseeable solution to
the problem is to just die young,
having faces leaving souls nameless, if

ever you win undying fame,
know that its cachet’s wealth is an
ugly oppressive thing, a non-
transferable burden, that such

indebtedness to an image
is crippling & not worth pursuing,’
reads the warning scrawled by someone
with not enough time and too much

learning on the bottom half of
the contract, an addendum shelved
without a date, without any-
one signing it, the unsealing

of one’s fate a tricky thing to
renegotiate after selling
out, not knowing who owns you or
where to go what makes of this one

its only saving provision
an instrument indenturing
the indecision of savants
resurrecting someone who might

have a clue, Necromancy Drew
freeing servants of confusion
so they can move through ritual
and see beyond the illusion.