only has frostbitten shoulders

to lean on. The better half

of his days touch nothing

more than a slender

snooze button. The residue

of dreamy crust 

that falls from his eyelids

is stardust upon every body

of water.
He spends his life getting confused

for Sorrow’s little helper,
even though they look nothing alike.

When he and Sorrow first started
a school band, he plucked rib

strings from a cage to use them
as drumsticks.

Truth be told, he hasn’t stopped
falling since he learned

how to crawl,
but when he gets back up

he’ll play you the blues like it was

all he was born to do.

He was raised in the scavenged coalmines
of hearts gone grey, he searched for the worn

off shine of forever like blood on a diamond
on a poor woman’s tired hand.

He would kiss every floorboard

of Miss Misery’s basement

just to spend the night tied up
under her unlocked doors

of flesh. She says, Yes,
it takes a cosmos

of repression to not see

that Sorrow only

keeps you around so sometimes

he can pretend

he’s someone else.