Warrant

I painted the walls

and the floors

and the ceiling

and the mirrors

.

with all my untold secrets:

the plumage of the cardinal,

all the scarlet sins,

the sanguine colour of night

.

and now I'm sorry –

I swore I never would,

and I know how much it hurts –

and all the fault is mine

.

painting on the wall, I did love this life –

I, made of stars,

a fragment of an infinity

the stuff of fables –

.

but I never looked back

and the spear found a way through

and walking the lines never made sense

so I slipped from the edge

.

and for you it's missing

like a hole in space,

premature lanky shadows

or the dying light

.

and now I'm sorry

for your tilting planet

a ghost that mourns

the burden on your shoulders.

.

To the rusty octaves and the lost boys

to the fake answers to genuine questions

to the lunatic who builds his house in the grass

to the guardian hiding your deep-loathed desire

.

and how the bells toll your technicolour tears

and how you come undone in splinters

and how your ships all run aground

and how you toss your standard and lose the war:

.

here it's not heaven, nor even space –

here it's just cold

here it's just dark

here it's just empty

.

so dance the lines instead

in a language they only dream of

of held gazes and still hands

of all the scarlet sins;

.

learn to fall, to rise

and it'll make sense –

for me life never did,

but I'm just a token.

Reviews appreciated, as always.

-C.S.