Where Small Things Break

Panes slick with cold sweat,

Weeping in unavoidable sadness —

Voyeurs of the world inside.

Teardrops’ running ink darkening the storm clouds —

Bruising atop a forewarning gray,

Painting on the stolen smiles like porcelain dolls,

Tied up —

Behind slatted panel doors.

Dim lighting shrinks the room.

Shadows lengthen,

Pooling in the corners like bile-ochre rot;

An infection of endurance,

Survival of the most vile mind.

Damp burial cloths stretch across the ceiling,

As the phantoms reach,

Feeding on agonies,

While the ceramic suffers the wants of sequestered desire.

Silence swelling in the aftermath,

Every time,

Drowning the crescent moonbeams —

Their glow paling with every setting of the sun,

Every drawing of the curtains,

Every closing —

Of the door.

Trespassing fingers trace the latch.

A deafening click that shutters all the light in the world.

Those grazing eyes’ searing sight,

Scorch marks tracking across the kilned flesh,

Peering through the slats,

Before taking their dolly —

Out to play.