Ascend

I am the son of a treacherous hand.
Told golden and chosen and lifted to light.
Reflected in brass on the casket of hope.
In spite I decline, I decline, I decline.
Now gold turns to lead turns to acid to piss.
Naked and awake in the kitchen I see myself,
two apples and a chair,
in a house that is nonetheless collapsing from the corrosion of doubt.
From a life of the mind, from the absence of heroes,
just the buckling of foundations, just the ebbing of tides.
While this town was talking shit about itself, while I was doing likewise,
while I was mouthing hymns to the walls.
Now my wounds close wearily, light is no longer with me,
only a weight I cannot lift.
A projection on the side of your house that reads I no longer have the energy
for breathing.