1st Draft
Wash your hands of my blood
stained with salt and soap-scrubbed
till your skin peels in rancid numbness.
You deliver me to gawk at my display,
a distant memory a long ways away
and all I ask is Why?
you've forsaken me to love but never be loved,
deserted, desiccating in the dry heat,
blistered till my body turns to ash.
Three years of yearning,
a decade of dreams burning,
thirty more to mourn.
At last, I return to be born.
2nd Draft
Wash your hands of my blood
stained with salt and soap-scrubbed
till your skin peels with rancid numbness.
My eyes sting to see your entourage of sorrow
follow the dirt path i carved in the earth
and the earth carved in me, and even then
you gawk! – you watch between earth and the
larva of Time and admire; O how the starved artist
will never again play the lyre, so
you delivered me to the head of dead things,
the dream-ridden grave-yard far from being seen
from your golden palace, Pompous Pilate,
and I ask Why?
you've forsaken me to love but never be loved,
left deserted, desiccating in the dry heat,
body dirty, blistering till I shed ash and sleep.
Three years of yearning stokes the
flames for a decade of dreams burning,
serving thirty more to mourn, and
at last – I return to be born.