I did not want to write the words
come unbidden
        did not want to give form, give life
        to the shapeless nightmare haunting my dreams
and yet the words still come flowing
like waves, like the ebb and flow
of blood welling from a slit throat
oozing with every rattling breath

In this final moment
on the last train to nowhere
and all the earth is still
I ponder the wounds upon my hands
and whether I shall ever write again

No, I may as well ask whether I’ll ever breathe again

If I can take this pen to paper
and not feel these wounds
not end up probing the unhealed flesh
with the razor sharp blades of memory
If Blood is not perhaps Truth
and clarity is not the eternal secret of dying
    And the haze up ahead
    makes it certain
    that I must live
that my glass is not yet empty
and I must still dream