words

i have become ill with obsession
beyond any reasonable measure,
a great lapse in sensibility
that has left me lacking conviction,
muttering powerless incantations
hour after timid hour,
night after night
in this carnival mind
that is filled with the lights
and attractions of doomed methods,
all things undone
by the demented gesturing
of my own careless hand.

ill formed words
and strange compulsions
haunt me on such nights as this,
growing colder
each more than the one before,
summer slowly dissipating
beyond the edge of the world
leaving behind a changeling
of frail disguise
that erases all progress
from this heart;
i am certain there are other ways
to accord oneself
with those who have gone on,
other ways to atone
for such idiosyncrasy,
other rituals to advocate.

deplorable behavior, this,
and i’ll not argue
against my own unbecoming,
the way that meaning falls
silent and godless
as autumn leaves
from the aura of my invention,
spinning slow and perfect
in the space i have left behind,
destroying worlds i have encountered
and leaving at the onset of night
like a thing ashamed of its actions,
but what source other is there
to be held accountable?
as if some simulacrum within
were marking out my trajectory
against the very angle
i mean to follow,
as if it were not me
who breaks each day in half
and from its molten kernel
drinks the blood of existence.

-S.C. Martinez