Words will escape me for weeks at a time.

  I am not blocked, but decidedly silent.

  A month ago my Nucleus 

  decided I had poured out enough,

  then closed the gates before

  I was barren of heart.

  There is a Force in me greater

  than my parts.

  It is an incinerating bond I have,

  this marriage to a Muse.

  I fear some days that my entropy

  may tear me asunder.

  So I release its energy

  through meter and rhyme, space and time. 

  

  To calm myself I press my face

  to the soothing cool

  of a pane of glass in winter.

  I look past the steam to the December

  tree line off my back porch.

  The seasons have come full circle.

  I admit I am physiologically unsettled

  during the dark months.

  I fall prey to ill humors

  when the days burn off too quickly.

  

  Walking away from the window

  I escape wholly into music. 

  The house is filled with sacred melodies,

  like a church,

  and I am lain prostrate here

  to this altar, the pale face of a machine.

  I record more of the side effects

  this gregarious butterfly endures

  to tell a few jokes,

  to believe in God,

  to write a poem.

  And don’t even think about

  sending goddamn pity.

  I chose this life just like the rest of you!

  

  I am aware of my damnation’s price tag.

  

  Caressing these keys like a rosary, writing this,

  I begin to brood over what I have lost to live.

  Words uttered not to beg your empathy.

  It’s just a question, that’s all.

  A question of how many souls

  I have seared.

  A tally of the hearts I have broken.

  The exact number of those

  I have unabashedly left behind.

  

  I annually multiply these variables

  and then try to live with my reflection.

  There are some wars that do not

  give out metals for surviving the worst.

  My border skirmishes are all on the inside,

  spreading guilt and remorse into my very skin.

  No, our award for survival is a brave face,

  unscathed by the Last Tsunami as it comes for us all.

  Our candle will not flicker.

  Our back will not break.

  Our spirits will endure God’s lashes

  because someone must relight the world.

  

  Use your demons to ignite the wick.

  Do not forget Saint Jude loves you more than Jesus.

  There are lonely nights ahead

  for us wordsmiths!

  Welcome them and walk through Hell.

  My personal inferno has forged a hard man

  from the ore of a boyish past.

  Thus is the price of immortality.

  Thus is our pound of flesh to obtain it.