Bitter Spills

"Bitter Spills"
2011

These enticing words are the birds
Making a home inside my head
But in lieu of a world they deserve
It's become a cage instead
And the doors are tightly closed
All thanks to rust's embrace
And wearing their despair like clothes
Has become so commonplace
Oh, ascend my bitterness
Won't you rise to claim
Prove to my mind's castle walls
That you'll never be ashamed
Of giving the bitter birds
Still trapped inside this cage
Room to spill all of their hatred
Right here on my page
Then I'll take my inner turmoil
And give each sentence life
Hoping each willing written subject
Survives a predicate of strife
And then somehow penetrates
The conscience of the crowd
That you would call my readers
Who chose to say these words aloud
As I said, "Oh, ascend my bitterness
Won't you rise to claim
Prove to my mind's castle walls
That you'll never be ashamed
Of giving the bitter birds
Still trapped inside this cage
Room to spill all of their hatred
Right here on my page."
What is it in a wordsmith
That longs for suffering in spades
Why must our minds search for beauty
In life's most darkest of shades
For it's true, we love the sunlight
But find our hope in the rain
And it's seems that we're unhappy
Until we're able to complain
And sing, "Oh, ascend my bitterness
Won't you rise to claim
Prove to my mind's castle walls
That you'll never be ashamed
Of giving the bitter birds
Still trapped inside this cage
Room to spill all of their hatred
Right here on my page."
Friend, do you feel I seek attention
With this most rhetorical stance
Looking like I'm held in suspension
And going backwards by chance
But before you reach a conclusion
Please allow the voice in my head
To narrate a tale in collusion
With the will this desire fed
With the sweetest bitterness
That ever rose to claim
It proved to my mind's castle walls
That it would never be ashamed
For giving the bitter birds
Still trapped in this cage
Room to spill all of their hatred
Right here on my page
For my emotions are the shades
In which I'll paint a picture still
And my page is just a canvas
That I will stalk until I kill
And if you used your opened eyes
My friend, you'd have to see
It's only when I'm deep in misery
That I find my strength and majesty
So you can quote your scripture
But I'd rather write my own
Thinking about the more than 40 days
That I've truly spent alone
With nothing more than pens
To bleed their ink for me
So that's what I'm loyal to
Despite what our God may think of me
And the sweetest bitterness
That ever rose to claim
It proved to my mind's castle walls
That it would never be ashamed
For giving the bitter birds
Still trapped in this cage
Room to spill all of their hatred
Right here on my page...