Deliverance

I walked in the light,

but it couldn’t burn away

all the creeping creatures

who crawled out from under my bed.

 

They infest my head and devour my control

though I stand inside whitewash walls

where they painted over the graffiti

those night artist that slice open the guts

where the maggots grow.

 

On those ivory barriers

their passions smeared

the grotesque, vile hues of those insects.

 

Yet each dawn the caretakers

who hide their wrist scars under alabaster robes,

while painting over those images

how they tremble beneath their grins

eyes holding back the terror over the possibility

this mausoleum the decorate as an antique store

will really bring a cure

for the suffering they never admit

except in the cold shadows

where they make tombstones shaped like escape hatches.

 

Met a man who claimed

his life had been healed of voices,

no more snakes entered his chest

there was peace from the screaming.

 

In his hand he held a ticket for skydiving

only admitted he said he gave away his parachute,

spoke of leaping from a plane with such passion

guess he found his own from of salvation.

 

Didn’t take up his offer to join him

though wasn’t sure how much longer

my own sanity will last

because not sure this melancholy

and irony soaked cesspool

can be worse than what waits beyond sleep.