deception

I will remain forever silent,
bottled inside a sphere of deceit and deception,
I fester and ache.

Sprawled out
heart open on the dissection table:
Do you see the part labeled with your name?
The tissue that beats only for you,
the ventricle through which blood nourishes and lust infects?

I inscribe your name there,
branded in this moment of bitter pain and sorrow.

~j. allen

glaze

was it so wrong of me to deliver
the dozen krispy kreme's -
the glaze, colored revelry of sprinkled
visually increasing glycemic index's -
to the doctor's and nurses
on the second floor?

never mind the diabetic patient
waiting in the lounge for the news
on the numbers,
anxious for the results;
pondering through the haze
of the retinopathic glaze.

never mind the man,
arteries sludging along
whose lipids have waged war
upon the gentle beat;
he won't mind
pass him a fritter
and a little something for his liver.

~ j. allen

see the darkness in emotion

Systemic Septic Depression

Ask her a question,
seek the knowledge of her ills and pain.
Take the first steps down the healing path.

Yet, when she reveals
the depth of her loss
and the void created in death,
you bypass her heart,
appealing instead to her visible scars,
and the alchemy on the differential:

Insomnia,
loss of the will to see into the future,
absence of the feeling of life;
“the spark that burned in my heart, it (he) has died Doctor,
please give me a tincture and potion to absolve death and cure despair.”

Answer her pleas O’ great master of the healing arts!
The loss now is yours,
the medical mind keen to the symptoms,
yet your hands merely treat the epidermal wounds;
local anesthetic, apply salve of wavering sympathy,
sterile gauze, wait for the tears to dry and the emotion to clot.

Could you be that fearful of your own mortality?
Is that the excuse?
Doctor, you missed the mark,
the saline tears spoke the true illness,
burdened below the “pain in my back and shortness of breath.”

Your script will never heal her,
she is gone now to the septic death – depression –systemic.

~j. allen