It is World Dark Poetry Day.
It is also the day Matthew Shepard
Was robbed of everything he had
But a story,
Beaten like a used metaphor,
A not-yet-dead horse,
And left tied to a fence
Like a witch, like a sacrifice
To a blind corn god of hate.
I want to write about ravens
But his college scarecrow body
Keeps them at bay.
I conjure castles of stone and secrets,
But they bleed into asylums
Where men and boys
Repeat lies like hail marys:
The chemicals, the scissors
The metal bars, anything better
Than what they are.
I wish the monsters
Always turned out to be gorillas
Or inchoate wraiths, metaphorical wolves
But instead, it’s always just men,
Banal in their maintenance of status quo
Not so easily banished
Yet so much easier to ignore.
All I can think to write is:
Void, abyss, loss, eternal dark
Despair, torture, escape, madness.
Royal Rose 