A Most Unusual Affair

A Most Unusual Affair

I visited with my demons

Though the choice was not my own,

They showed me all my failures

Every chance I'd ever blown.

I dined with insipidity

Who served a dish so cold,

It tasted of a cardboard box

From when I was thirteen years old.

I kept my pictures hidden there

My visions of the world,

Shot with the zoom of a child's eye

The edges had started to curl.

Thus knowing I liked photography

Doubt took me by the hand,

He led me to a dark room

So small I could hardly stand.

He showed me the photos I'd snapped of life

How he stole them I could not describe,

And in spite of the method – the way I was taught

Not one was black and white.

Finally regret with a hint of a smile

Served a blood red cordial so smooth,

I knocked back every glass he poured

My troubled mind to sooth.

Yet the brew ran out both sides of my mouth

And dribbled onto my dress,

I wanted it cleaned but the stain was set

As my dreams were put to rest.

And at last allowed to take my leave

With pen so hot it burned,

I purged them all from the place where I crawled

A hard taught lesson learned.

As one by one my works were done
No grace for this insolent soul,

I wrote in blood on parchment pale

Half is bigger than the whole.

~Darkling Plain, Sept. 26, 2006