A Poem a Day Keeps the Zoloft Away

My hand reaches

and the sulfur preaches

to my flared nostrils

I hold the enflamed matchstick

still against my chest

waiting for it to recede into

Darkness,

people honor the fire I’m

holding,

the power and beauty of flame,

but in mine eyes it only

accentuates the inevitable

Darkness,

the calm of inevitability,

I take solace in its vast

reaches

using the etch-a-sketch in my

brain to draw on the blank

slate it presents.

#211