I have come back from
the dead to haunt my
poetry like it haunted me
when I lived, plaguing me
with unneeded guilt,
bringing the harrowing
parts of my life into focus,
until I sobbed and sobbed
because the lucidity never
brought me catharsis, but
only added to my distress,
forcing me to relive the shame
of betrayal and rejection —
Roses withering and glass shattering,
melodies silenced and black tendrils
creeping out of Hades.
I will make my lines
bend and twist and shrivel
and cry out for mercy,
to beg to be deleted, but to
find no answer to their prayers,
I will burn them with
acidic wrath, enfeeble them
with many sicknesses
until distorted and deranged,
they try to leap out of the page,
but find themselves held back,
pushed with the force of a language
that I’ve learnt in the afterlife,
a language that isn’t made up
of syllables, words and sentences,
but is something primal, raw,
and punitive.
Ordinary Person 
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