~
it’s the closest thing
to bloodletting or self-harming,
there’s little choice in the matter,
it occurs at any time day or night,
call it word incontinence,
they expel themselves with very little notice,
leaving me drained, wrung out, bone-dry,
desiccated and parched,
bizarrely it’s painless albeit
there’s always an emotional toll to pay,
people think writers are masters of words,
not so, the opposite is true, as words
prod, arouse, question, suggest, tempt
but most heinously they
sacrifice themselves to my page,
leaving me to witness their final end,
their lyrical demise
a death from my hand
laid out in stone cold, printed perpetuity,
I plead guilty
*
© Graham R Sherwood 05/25
grahamrichardsherwood.co.uk 