I met myself in the mirror
Only, my eyes
Told me I’d grown grey,
withered,
And died.
Skin stretched taut
Over bare, vacuumed bone
A corpse with a beard
No wiser, just old.
///
One day I will step
Off that precarious ledge,
Fall into the void,
Crack open my head
And under the snaps
Of too-brittle tendons
I’ll gouge out my wonder
With the devil’s own weapons.
Stumble, deaf and blind,
Into the post-life,
Gladly stripped of my senses,
Gladly stripped of my strife.
Neurons battered and frayed
By the shock of existence,
Escaping to fresh dimensions
Finding solace in distance.
Until that time comes
This oil rig will burn
Until its reserves are spent
And that last dive is earned.
Though we may think
We’re running on fumes
There are supernovae inside us
Erupting in plumes.
Let every last moment
Ignite these blackened skies
And rain down in starlight,
Galaxies in our eyes.
Paper Street Diaries 