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Aaron Jones

Soliloquy of the Recluse

My head is flooded with inquiet things
of awful implication and appeal;
what is not said
can never be revealed
to hearts that sing—
only to those that dread.

For how should I explain
the sting of solitary pain,
the granite grinding of the graft
when stitched into a skin
with vicious craft,
how, when self-surgery is done,
the rat retrieves the pieces, one by one?

And how should I relate
the nature of the gates,
those iron holds of shame
which damn the salted waters down
and keep their fires tame—?
yet still I drown.

And now they flow,
and how they flow…
There is a weight upon my soul.
There is a blasphemer in my blood
which spits and raves and boils and shaves
and curdles it like mud.

And how can I detail
the way in which the present failed
and truth prevailed—?
that is, the truth of years;
that memories past can only breed regret,
and times to come sow only fear.

There is no life, there is no death,
there is but dark, unending depth;
sorrow, joy, and anger are
but fleeting fancies of the stars.

Our lives are but a hopeless stand
against a slew of fears; but stand we must,
for Death shall be the fear we fail to kill,
shall seize us from our slow-eroding hills
and dash our souls to dust.

What is it of this four-walled chest
that douses me with sweetest peace,
yet batters me with loneliness?

-X2A