I can call upon myself
but it's just a shell

bones break surface
offering quilltips
for forging poems
with
graduated cylinder-strained
diluted-air grade
not from concentrate
ink

the mechanism's safe
as sealed secret tombs
are safe
an echo of disdain
for which I apologize

aquiver with paste-
like listenings
replicating histories
foreign and estranged
to taciturn gaze;
functional, but
glazed

shells function as people
but not as well
words wish but don't tell
what awaits ingrained
in bones broken
for blessing

pop! but distressing
echoing, echoing
pain empathetically parsed
but cannot relate
it's too late

I'm walking
but not talking
I'm listening
but not communicating
I'm dead
but not yet down

entombed in my head;
all that might have been
still can, but
a refusal to bend
is found
in my own pen

I've built a prison for myself