the price this poet pays

only Silence hears my laughter.
in a dark place, i choke on pride.
Reflection renders my body to the years
that your silence has consumed.

at the breathing cluttered center
of it all is a terrible stillness.
Nothing stirs the dust.
my screams don't touch a feather.
tornadoes of my words hardly part the grass.
i stare, trying to wipe the slate clean.

now more than then, i feel the fallen world.
now more than then, i walk a rotted plank
between the road and the lost home.

i scrape charred ashes from my belly
and write a letter to Nobody.

i write in a language that
i cannot read.

ghost