Revenge of the Unwritten Words
After billions of parsecs of drab, absent repose
I let loose all the words I never wrote.
Small mercy, I reckoned, as frail, as comatose
as meager, at last they’ll be out of my throat.
Besides, our ship got near the horizon lip;
Words barely would have had the time to rise
from sleep. To be frank, I’d hoped that it would heal
too, my crippled grip, my writing hand, mid-knuckle high,
where disrespected words did tend to fester 'n hive.
Instead, they rallied, coalesced into stretch ropes,
and trussed me in the chair, as armies of rebel,
Still Unwritten Words fed into me in spades.
By day I chewed and swallowed without cease.
At night words routed through my innards, waves,
effluviums of Words. At dawn I purged--
grey taffy messes from my mouth emerged.
Words rolled these up into papyrus scrolls
of mismatched words, to pad entire walls.
In vain I beg forgiveness, pleading them to stop.
‘Go write it down now if you can,’ they scoff and taunt,
‘The spoken words, or ones in thoughts, don’t count.’
After billions of parsecs of drab, absent repose
I let loose all the words I never wrote.
Small mercy, I reckoned, as frail, as comatose
as meager, at last they’ll be out of my throat.
Besides, our ship got near the horizon lip;
Words barely would have had the time to rise
from sleep. To be frank, I’d hoped that it would heal
too, my crippled grip, my writing hand, mid-knuckle high,
where disrespected words did tend to fester 'n hive.
Instead, they rallied, coalesced into stretch ropes,
and trussed me in the chair, as armies of rebel,
Still Unwritten Words fed into me in spades.
By day I chewed and swallowed without cease.
At night words routed through my innards, waves,
effluviums of Words. At dawn I purged--
grey taffy messes from my mouth emerged.
Words rolled these up into papyrus scrolls
of mismatched words, to pad entire walls.
In vain I beg forgiveness, pleading them to stop.
‘Go write it down now if you can,’ they scoff and taunt,
‘The spoken words, or ones in thoughts, don’t count.’