Why does it trouble you that I have no stakes
In all worldly longings
Isn't that painfully obvious?
I am simply loitering, rudderless
Among the caskets of aborteds

Why do you want to dissemble my darkness?
I am all eyeless
Isn't that tedious?
I am just petitioning, clueless
In the realm of obscenity

Why does it scare you that I lay bare
All my secrets?
Isn't that tepidly useless?
I am simply steeped in slaying
Gods of polluted shrines.

T. Byram Karasu is the author of The Rags of My Soul