He watches a life burn down to dusty ash
From a tiny, yellow gas flame
That lights the cigarette in his hand
That churns out words from his troubled brain.

A writer's violence hides, not in his eyes,
But in angry, quivering palms that trace
A venomous, untidy, familiar scrawl
Reducing her complexity to scribbles on a page.

Though he mourns the memories of happier days
He feeds it all to his carnage.