BITTERSWEET

A Poem

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

how you shine —
how you thought you’d dance
(in a starlight mania, oh yes)
until you eclipsed everything

everything under the sun

you don’t falter,
you never miss a beat,
and you’re always
keeping time

but the madness —
oh, it creeps so close,
close enough that you can feel it
scalding the back of your neck

and there’s a restlessness to it,
the way your murder eyes look ‘round
and ‘round and ‘round and ‘round —
till there’s nothing but a never-ending story

you cast back, wielding spells —
or do you? —
all the while you wonder
which way’s up and which way’s down

you wanted nothing more
than to cry out a warning —
but no one heard, no one heard,
until you perished as a songbird

faltering
in
the
dark