1.
The boy lived his
childhood inside a casket
His own private hellscape

His face was distorted
by the age of eighteen,
he wished to be unseen

2.
The son of a glorified painter,
an unused color on a palette
               faded and forgotten

He’s been dead
to his father
before he died

3.
At last,
his wish came true,
no one saw the similarity
between his distorted face
and a Picasso’s painting


4.
Drawing road maps on his skin
was his only consolation,
he chose the color red
to mark his missing path

Scars between his thighs
like hidden treasures
centuries deep
away from people’s sight

5.
Each morning,
he awoke with thousand faces
none of which are the one
he started out with

The boy who is now a man
grew restless of crashing into all
those foreign versions of himself
every time he drifted to sleep

6.
After seven years of insomnia,
he stopped measuring happiness
based on how many nights he slept
A funeral rose in his heart as he wept

He muttered the word
suffering
as if it were
a prayer
or a lullaby

7.
The man longs
to be a boy again,
he couldn’t endure
another day inside—

the claustrophobic casket

—his head

Lone firefly
slowly burning away
Every repetitive lullaby shall linger,  
the boy aimed for a long night’s sleep