I am ready to plunge

Into tasteless banality,

To deny my pallet of a single delicacy,

To choke on the stale air

Left around my tongue.

No, it doesn’t brew worry or fear;

My appetite is no longer

Whetted by the fruits I slave for.

They grow above me in a monstrous tree,

And yet I am permitted to taste only one.

Sitting at its roots,

I remain still in indecisiveness,

Forever gaping like a goldfish

Upward into the tangled branches.

But before I choose my prize,

The fruits rot, shrivel, and blacken,

Falling around my spider-leg hands.

Nothing but a thin layer of dust remains,

The cremation of my dreams,

Around my brittle twig-like frame.

Yet I inhale the colorless haze

That camouflages my ashen pallor and black sunken eyes,

For I am nurtured and asphyxiated

On lungs that breathe ambition.