One Thousand And One

I had much, much more to say, than you would ever allow these broken lips of mine,
I had wounds I was not interested in patching,
interested in repairing,
having gotten used to being irreparable in more ways than one,

There were one thousand ways to tell you what I needed to tell you,
nine hundred and ninety nine reasons to shut my mouth,
because as it turns out,
pain was a good source of ink,
a very good source, indeed

Some one thousand days ago,
I used the popping Johnny,
and I unscrewed my cranium,
just enough to call myself unstable,
ill equipped,
unfounded in more ways than one,
one thousand, in fact,

But you have no right to call me,
to call me anything you would not call yourself,
to think that my agony was any less than yours,
or that mine was any more than theirs,

because it was not,
it was only worthy of this pen,
in this graveyard of my misgivings,
of my mistakes,
of my regrets,

There were one thousand burial plots to entomb my demons,
one thousand ways to take me six feet under,
and let me rise from the dead the way we only can in photographs,

because I was aging,
I had much, much more to say, than you would ever imagine,
I liked myself the way I was,
morbid,
damaged, as you mentioned,

with my skin cloaked in ink,

and this was my letterpress,
pressed for you,

and only you