Without Authority (A Confession)

Poem written 11-20-24.

1.
Don’t look at me,
If you love me at all,
Don’t look at me,
Look at my words

My tender paint upon the canvas,
Of meaning and expression,
My 4am pallid murmurings,
And bloody indulgences writ large

2.
This poem is a distress signal,
The canary in the mine is silent, 
I am lost in the dark and wandering,
The ghost town of my childhood home

Out 10,000 fathoms without a life raft,
Lost in love’s expanding depths,
Trying desperately to see myself,
In the shifting, transforming seasons

3.
How can I tell you anything, my love?
I am just another fool with pretty words,
Lying to the whole wide world so well,
That reality itself has come to listen

A timid witch forced to do battle,
In an invisible war against enemies,
That wear respectable clothes,
And have white, shiny teeth