Into the Woods

I stand neck-high tall within the quicksand of my infirmities. Green and gaunt, I hesitantly genuflect. Ravaged tendons and corpuscles are barely breathing within the vacant corridors of a soiled carcass. My ardor for vindication has been abandoned. I presently refrain from accepting the consultation of umbrous soothsayers. Readers of tealeaves and tarot cards hurl my infractions towards the apex of your divinity and the nadir of my scrutiny. I espy no Judas rope (dangling from lofty boughs) as scores of unanswered novenas sleep beneath my fingernails. Scars flourish upon my skin - agnate to larvae and dried leaves. The density of my marrow turns moss covered and dank. Choirs of starving nestlings bear witness to my afflictions. Swallowing the last notes of a disenchanted requiem; they slowly bind my wrists with twigs of knotted reflections - as Harper Lee's macaws peck my cheeks and the calculated feast ensues. A murky blanket of eventide quilts me in fibers of remorse. Lesions burst underneath my skin; they herald my inhumanity as I impishly smile. Connect-the-dot cold sores, (not found in children’s books) entwine a raw endoscope probe - mocking my charted results. Inky woodlands are devoid of carnival mirrors and inner deliberations. Such forms of bun coed celebration minuet within another's emptied psyche. The conduits to my umbra are blocked. All exits are closed. So, into the woods I go, medicine chest-closed and matchstick available. Searching for answers the starving nestlings formerly consumed.