The Muse

Pain is a special kind of fuel, even back in the happier 
Days. The words that have dried up for months
Have come back to me wet as blood and begging
For me to write them every night. So I hold up 
The shards and examine it’s edges, cut my finger
On it, water it with tears, worship the selfish muse.

It only approaches with the creeping shadows, oh 
What a cowardly muse! It begs me to pick the scabs
That have grown over the wound in the light of day,
And I, to cope with it all, cannot help but obey. 
It will get better, it will get better, I pray at its feet,
Lay down the dissected corpse of my grief and wish
That a new muse will come along and lead me out
With a butterfly as my guide. To newer fields, to a place
Of friendship, a place I spoke of, where I can write
Of happy things again.

Pain is a greedy muse. It grabs at all my words like 
Fingers of a flame, tugs and tugs until I relent and satiate it.
And when I’m done, I only feel numbness in my heart
As a calm takes me into it’s loveless arms, and presses
My cheeks against stone-cold sleep. Only then,
Exhausted, will the world slow and grow quiet
And I might hear my heart’s 
Thudding, living, 
Proving that it can love again.