sallow memory

your memory weeps, like the aching of a yellowed bruise, sluggishly pushing curdled blood cells past sallow skin cells and open veins.

to touch upon the pulsing wound from so long ago leaves the bitter taste of dry ash and lost time lingering against the palate of my mouth, pressed against the back of my tongue, and my throat chokes closed, sealing tight against a slew of onslaughting memory and forcibly forgotten moments that shove against a door haphazardly fastened shut with bowed out edges and splintered two by fours.

fingers curl, nails biting the tender flesh of palms as tension weaves an invisible web over mind and soul, catching happy thoughts like flies upon sticky spider strands to be drained and destroyed by prickling fangs that remind me of the words you laid as knives down at my feet.

i should have watched you closer, should have noticed sooner the disease you spread around you like clouds of blackened scarabs, infecting those too innocent, too ignorant to understand that your tongue and your touch were made of biting acidity.

too long i suffered under the heavy heat of your despair, too long i stood with chains linked around bloodied ankles and rubbed raw wrists, feeling the lash of thorned vines flaying against the tender skin of a purpled back as you raved your vocal madness to the world.

but too long always comes to an end, and the taste of enlightened freedom never tastes as good as when you've experienced firsthand being lashed to the mast of a sinking ship propelling itself into eternal darkness and dredged up the strength to cut yourself free.