a poet's heart
is a thing of ink

pigmented with equal parts
hubris and anxiety
rage and hope
passion
and tears

narcissists filled with self loathing

composed of shouts inarticulate
and whispers of intricate craft

our thoughts and words rushing
through us
barely legible

defining our days
with explosions of fathomless obscurity
or flashes of visceral clarity

our nights consumed
in communion with paradise
while teasing secrets from the abyss

couplets and quatrains
providing us the space
to live
or to die

running breathless in free verse
we grasp at perpetuity
yet find ourselves doomed
to ephemeron

like the sky
we are rewritten each day

yet as the sky remains the sky
so do we remain
what we are

pages
in a book we can barely read

remaking and trimming

editing ourselves

to fit within the margins
of our paper souls