Credo

Everything I knew I committed

to the page, that strange tale

that rode my life like a spirit

ensnared by the air within

that hoary fairytale house,

encircled by pickets of chicken bones

and Hollywood backlot trees

(perfectly realistic, to a point)

and painted every inch of that thing, I swear,

with a brush made of a single human hair,

while obsession like a control burn

set the forest in which I worked aflame.

I spoke the words to an empty house

for a thousand hours.

Rehearsing for what?

The rapture to take me, maybe,

tied with prayer flags,

working out my own salvation.

And where is she now, that batty hag

with her insane demands,

atop that flying pestle?

Long gone, and sometimes the days grind

the words to dust, here in her strange domain

where I lay awake at night, afraid,

feasting on hunger, forgetting

that the coyotes in the distance are only the echoes

of my own lost children, trailing breadcrumbs,

and when they arrive they will be

hungry for the harvest of tales.

I believed in myself, and them,

it will be said, to the point of madness

and so resolved to reside

at the edge of reason.