I’ll never escape the butchers’ shop.

I walked in one side,
Whole and alive,
In all the honest mess of me.

I trusted every goad that led
I nuzzled every hand that fed
In good faith I confessed to be

All I’ve been, all that was true,
I left no part hidden from view
But on the other side I couldn’t see

I succumbed to butchery.

Trapped and wrapped in dishonest packaging;
Just another product of merchantry.

Product never sees it coming.

I remember saying way back when
That it was hard to believe
Anything could ever feel good again.
As I pass through this grief

That hasn’t ceased
To look true.

I recognize moments, and people,
That would have brought me deep delight
Whose smiles would once keep me full
Of buoyant joy, the precious sight

I inhabited
In gratitude.

But now I watch their full ascent
From behind myself, over my own shoulder,
I acknowledge what they would have meant,
But I’m not there; I’m somewhere colder

Trapped in the stasis
Of nowhere else to go,
No other way to be.

And no soul without, nor within,
May ever again know me

Because who I’ve been
Is no longer here to see.

All these heaps of words
As I try to purge
Every passing desire and reaction
Verbalizing tangents and distractions
In a mad dash

To diagnose and excise

The cause of my necrosis.