AN
EVENING LAMENT
Stephanie
Smith
Ennui is the blackness that's been
lodged in my forehead for years
My eyeballs are not real
Only a blurred reality
A nightmare city I can turn inside out
between blinks
and intoxicating shots of moonlight
My eyelids are blinds that filter out the dust
when sacrificial slaughter won't do
What's become of the gruesome day?
I stared at the sun too long
and now my body bleeds
Photographs spread across my bed
invoke the demon inside of me
I touch them with my fingertips
I can feel them creeping in
I want to set myself on fire
so I may be rid of these memories
But I can't move from this place
What is it, then, that holds me back?
Is it the crippling fatigue?
The scattered thoughts that keep me up at night?
The empty orbits in my skull
that housed the dreams now dead?
