Emptiness Is

Palms covered in little crescents
Your fingernails digging in to distract you
From the fact that your ribs are a cage
Without a bird.

The air thrums with the song of cicadas
And midnight wind playing through the trees.
Far above the corporeal, I stand
Peering over cliffs into the jet black seas.
Chaotic waters crash against the rocks
And rage and burn to sweep away the earth.
Tempted by the waves to jump, to fly,
I search the skies for some last sign of worth.
But when at last I reach the very edge-
A breath from tumbling off the precipice-
Soft sunlight spills over the horizon
To chase away the dark of the abyss.

Aberrant bloom, you doggedly ungrow-
once scarlet, now a pale and formless bud
(much tidier to nip when drained of blood)
writhes grimly down into the earth below.

O! fruitless vine, you hide yourself away,
ashamed to drink the stars' sufficient light-
and so, though worthy in another’s sight,
unworthiness begets a sick decay.