Bloodletting

Blinking cursor, my I.V. drip.
What do hijacked fingers rip
from my convulsing brain,
and spray across this blank script?
What ideas must I admit I contain?

Frustrated romantics stare at the empty page,
the daunting pressure of
breaking perfect nothingness,
with the perfect phrase.

But perfect silence yields only to clumsiness.
In darkness, helplessly imitating the grace
to not to kick over the lamp,
kick the wrong monster under the bed,
or kick more empty perfect silence
out into space.

I submit, the page takes what it takes,
And stare at the fallout flickering under
An injured lamp, even as it paints my face
with cruelty, glinting jagged shards of words
I couldn’t let escape.

And silence, dropped and shattered,
Arms too spent to hold.
Long too stubborn to set down safely,
I fed that silence,
now too ravenous to control.

Red eyed focus,
punch drunk defenseless,
blue light reflected in my face,
I stare at my creation,
serve as its witness,
and account for whatever, the page takes.

– Bloodletting © Mike Chernoff 11/12/2022