Departing this verdant microcosm made me ill,
Diseased and poisoned,
Unrecognizably disfigured,
An irreparable invalid.
Leaving these cloistered quarters
Of myopic worldliness,
Supported by auto-aroused academia,
In turn made me the one who lost perspective.
My wandering
ambulation was transient,
As though each step forward
Was a fabrication of mind and not matter,
And I found myself seeing rose again.
Body returned and thoughts forced to follow,
All was left as though preserved with cosmic formaldehyde.
Each form exactly in place,
Eyes glassy and blank stares looking ahead.
Yet you peer as far down those colored rounds,
As you can bring yourself to bear,
And find that there are wisps of thinking,
Swirling around and metamorphosing.
Then their eyes find you,
Only to find that they’re covered with human tissue,
Unlike the plastic veneer that covers theirs,
And I am the one that is infirmed.
Those once endearing figurines,
You held on to and placed safely on the mantle,
Have cracked and chipped away
Their delicate porcelain.
Acid and stress from posturing force
And from facile and trite gravity,
Wearing away the parts that are beautiful and of substance,
Only to leave a grey mass of coprolite.
The stench that lingers from this toxic reaction,
That is made aromatic by the rose glass,
Has penetrated their pores
And made itself a home in their insecurity.
But how tragic it is that ceramic cannot sense
That it is being tainted.
The pestilence of my being is nothing
Compared to their addictive anesthetic.
For we are all sick,
Terribly, terribly sick.
