“Poets never ****.”
            -V. Nabakov


Oh, but don’t we?
Our methodology might
Differ, our craft more subtle-
And yet the end result,
Escorting some poor soul
To the gates of whatever end
Awaits them beyond this frame,
Is abhorrently familiar,
Our motives no more pure-

We move in different mediums
Some artists in oils,
Others in brute force-
Working in time signatures
Of days and weeks, years-
not Mere seconds-
This is not impulse-
But words weaponized?
That is artistry refined.
We work in palettes of grays.

We need to know them
For the poison to take hold.
To work it’s way through
The bloodstream, through
Every muscle until it is absorbed
Into who they believe themselves
To be, something they can never
Change about themselves
That they are sure is visible
To every passerby,
Some fracture in the facade.

The planting of a seed,
A word, a phrase-
Insidious in its design
A dark spot on the mind
So small, seemingly
Insignificant, but the foundation
Upon which we build our
Scaffold, buried in some
Line of text, in some metaphor
That draws an indelible line
Between some worldly beauty
And a deep buried flaw
They try to hide from the eyes of the world.
It’s delicate business after all,
Planting self doubt and loathing
So ingrained that one is unsure
Whether they ever existed before
The thought that now destroys them.