No sooner had the words leapt
from my mouth than they just died.
They fell and crashed like eggs on smoke.
Perhaps it’s good I lied.
My tongue was roped, then given hope,
then surely lashed and tied.
I saw a verb against the curb
bleed vowels from its side.
My head’s become a cave
for dying sentences, it seems.
They leak out nightly, gross, unsightly,
prodded on by dreams.
And as the wellspring gives them life
from somewhere deep inside,
just rest assured that every word’s
an oral suicide.