Estranged

You spoke of sore spots
You told burnt up dreams
that fester like skin cancer
or look like you have been
injecting the carcinogens
of lit cigarettes
straight into your arms
unsuccessfully

The smell of singed flesh
makes your skin crawl
but it is the incense
of your life insisting
its strange beauty upon you
like your incestuous father

This was the point
where you looked in the mirror—
picking the black flowers blooming
across the lowland of your body—
and evaluated your worth
one shortcoming at a time

And you wondered
what dreams are really made of
—their beauty is lost on you—
but you do not feel alone
in this wanton despair

“For most people,”—you sell yourself—
“it’s dreaming you are Hercules
with a boulder lifted over your head
when you are just another bug—
another mite—living under a rock…

that’s crushing you.”