The light dims and the dead raise their glasses
To the wine of wasted, blood-streaked tears
That permeate my mind. I lift my hand and reach
For them, but I am left with dripping dark
As the spirits of my dead emotions seek release.

As freelance feelings take their leave, am I human?
The thought of thatching shattered glasses
Brings back the dead, their forming tears
Mysteriously absent. And so they reach
The clammy, clotted, ****** hands through dark
Eyes; I scream that they might release.

But will the cold hands pity, and me release?
The light has fled the black irises: inhuman
Fusion of animation and empty glasses
In their eyes, like mine. Dry, lacking tears
That life gives. She bustles in the kitchen, reaches
For the saffron. But their souls remain dark.

And my sorrowing saffron soul is poisoned dark.
Let me go! I sigh release.
I am not human.
I am broken glass.
A fading fear of tears,
A soul outside my reach.

I am no fool; I do not claim to reach
Outside the world of dreaded dark
In which I live without release.
The creeping hands of Death are human,
As I am. Cast aside my riveting rose glasses
That rivers may run swift in my trailing tears.

Finally, the tears.
My own icy hand does reach
And wipes away the shifting dark.
The dead, as always, seek the just release,
But they are not human.
They do not wear my eyes, my glasses.

So raise the glass to my trying tears,
I reach and find no dark.
My feeling now released, I say that I am human.