When There is Nothing to Say

when all the words

I've chiseled out of myself,

break the surface of flesh,

and I bleed out the blackened scabs,

I'll stand naked in the light,

and look down

on my shotgun-shadow,

and see myself for the first time

in a mirror made of dirt.

and I will build a rake made from the bones

of empty pens to scratch the itch

of phantom phrases,

ones cut off long ago,

before I really knew how to use them.

and I will erase my ink with flame,

and filter the fumes through myself

in one final attempt to say it all

in signals of smoke that rise up

until sunrise smells like death

and looks like the silhouette

lying on the ground before me.