My enervated heart once touched,
and stolen from afar,
stretched out of propinquity,
and shattered,
screaming,
burning,
throbbing,
writhing,
bleeding across the gap too boundless.
Shards of delirium escaping,
a deathly fever, coherence failing,
sanity crumbling, my mind dissolves,
a psychic breakdown, a mind rape.
The acceptor of souls rolled his dice,
played his games of fate,
espied my transgressed world,
and shook his dark head.
No deliverance.
A emotional prison fabricated around my heart,
this apathetic barren vault has no portal,
merely the inert gray perimeter.
Shielded from the arduous cloudburst outside,
the thunder and lightning,
the glaring shards of betrayal.
Protected from love.
I lament for what I've forfeited,
but smile as I've escaped myself
and my nightmares.
The tombstone gray wall is firm and intractable,
falling not when leaned on,
crumbling not when clung to.
Eternally secure.
Mark Snellgrove
22 December 96