despondence.

it occurs
like a bitter drug,
a blue star awake with
verse. but his
bones don't ache,
no, they never do.

(yet they quiver;
disintegrate
with every quake)

paralysis.

a spine left in
stasis.

the remains of you
turned to nothing but
the scent of
overly-aged
mothballs.

piles
and piles
of dust.

metaphors
trapped
on the edges of
his teeth
and a rhapsody
billowing
in his skull.

his smile crooked
in a moonly manner.

the doldrums
forever trapped
in his lungs
as he burns and burns
and burns
his ways back
to being ash.