I used
To feel relief
At the prospect
Of expression
When unleashing
Living poisons
From a soul
With missing cause

Before
What answers came
Through shapes
Of faint obsessions
Biding hurt
In silence
At a moment
Ripe with fear

While sickness
That I’d claim
By close calls
Of my choosing
Inspired
Angry shadows
Like threats
When being chased

Running
From my dreams
Of ghosts
Whose fleeting semblance
Appeared
As waking nightmares
Within
Those anxious haunts –

These dwellings
That I’d made
And built
Like nervous chambers
Winding
Far and distant
Amid labyrinths
Held inside

So illness
Lost my heart
Not found
Among these ruins
Concealing jewels
Of envy
For a world
That mattered none

To this man
Who wasn’t dead
But thought
He might as well be
Until
Her beaming smile
Sought treasure
Near his core

Unearthing
Solid gold
From phrases
Left abandoned
Caked
With stony layers
Yet soft
As honest flesh.

Some words
Are never said
Or meant
To have been written

But these,
My only wishes,
Are the diamonds
Of your voice –

Shimmering
In my dark
As passions
Wholly priceless

With the help
I’d never asked for
Or fortune
Worth this cure.

– J. Pigno