The little thing at the back of my throat
carves gullies and pits as it boils and burns.

What purpose is there in a self over-flowing,
the run-off unasked for, the source never yearned?

Oh to shut off the valve, to plug up the hole!
My ventriloquist's act, poor interposition,

A wooden-head clacking its empty-head jaw
to an audience dead to its hollow ambitions.

That thing in my throat, oh . . . you see now the why!
Why leaving it be was my self-preservation.

This puppet sits lonely in darkness and pain
after needlessly shaming itself in purgation.

Open me, open me! Bright lacquered tin!
Within you shall find my cold, frightened twin.
Alone and aware of it.
Nobody cares for it,
Nor seeks a share of it.

I regret what'll be and what's been.