The Blood & The Bones

I’ve learned to smile as if it all came to fruition
every inclination I was taught to strive for
I do want this
but I also want to ache for something again
I want to feel my insides churn
with yearning
for a thing I can’t have so easily
or hold something in my chest
I wasn’t made to swallow
I want my fingers to burn to write
and my body to burn in anticipation
my mind ablaze with it
and the terror you feel when your fingers start to slip
please don’t say that this is the best of it
that all of that is behind me now
that every road has been traveled
and that my feet will forever be slow and heavy
from carrying every life I didn’t get to live
please don’t say
that regimen and obligation
that the long awaited assurance
I always thought that I needed
will be
the slow, dull guillotine
to what’s left of my existence

the blood
& the bones

ellis Caulder vale.