Before you left my soul battling alone in this chaotic land,
happiness used to beg permission to smile, to free its grief,
& to shine brighter than salt, from the gods within my look.
When your beards were not out of my eyelids’ scope,
you ensured that my body never went to rest for a night,
with weeds in the garden nursed below my nose.
Not too far from the first day the Earth mingled my path with yours,
you’d shapeshifted the once rotten faculty of my soul
into prepared slices of freshwater fish—
a meal devoured by circa all the flesh and blood
traversing life’s sacred secrets for unearthing factual sense
from words, phrases, & bizarre metaphors scribbled by God beneath the sun.
I was a was a painless boy, then a cat,
concerned solely with what would bring flesh and moisture
closer to the orifice beneath my nose.
You, my shapeless room, offered me all the breaths
that made me a man since before my legs could
withstand the scorching sun while tramping onto the land of bliss.
DoubleSpeak 