The Muse sang lyrics and lines.

Her lyrics, her lines passed over me in sacrifice.

Her purple painted polished nails

gripped my throat

Her serrated tongue

lacerating my chest open,

tearing red sinews and scarlet sins from my guileful flesh.

She pursued me

in the silence of a car

the Muse sought.

She held her mirror and loosened

darkly confessions from my quivering guts

Beholding myself through her royal mirror,

a monument of man’s sins.

My fleshy ribs exposed for all

my gilded heart of fools gold,

hiding a corrosive, lukewarm core.

I loved and supported,

annoyed and angered

doubted and left

dependent, empty handed. unstable isotope. unpredictably bonding

the Muse revealed.

I listened.

encouraged and blossomed the tales of

selfish and self-excused drink from life’s fountain.

The waters poisoned all, corrupted by rust, crusted its floral engravings

damned its streams, torn what work built half a decade of time

and prayer

the Muse revealed.

I ripped myself from the Muse,

tormented by Furies I saw everywhere they sought me.

On the trains, lawns, in the

night, in the market, in the

melodies I turned into a Poltergeist

the Muse revealed.

Amaranth streams sheered the rust,

polished what was left.

Few know what dreadful nights and summer flights we wonted

the Muse revealed.