there's a pain that's been

called every name in an

unwritten book...till it spits

itself out.

as the life of it's aggressor,

who knows not...as a baby

kicking away in a blackened

thicket.

encased in that beast-bent man...

who smokes the skin of night

with his own.

singing it to sleep with a voice

of ice.

a sense of self spare as a grain

of rice a day...pelting the stomach

of it's void.

doing penance in wild freedom--

to write light in passage.

which goes down forcibly...

every last word.

which was every first word with

the ease of pain.

every name in the book unwritten.

leaving him.