I apologize for my momentary silence
Your question caught me off guard
How can I speak so that you may understand?

I’m…
Well, do you mean how…
Really it’s…no, I mean it’s all…no.
I feel…
I feel.
And that’s it.
I feel everything.
Surely you can hear that,
No?

You see, there’s a certain…depth
Passionate and emotive
Dull and lingering
Sharp and palpable
An enigma, a paradox.
Pandora’s magic box.
It is
The deepest velvet tones of a minor
The prick of a needle’s point
The drug inside
The hymnals that didn’t save anyone
Amazing Grace.
It is
The bringer of bad news
The bell in the harbor
How sweet, that sound
That would send my mind back to the church
Where they are buried:
The wretches like me that couldn’t be saved.

There’s a certain depth
An ink-dark sea that rages inside of me
A demon shadow:
My pain.
There’s a certain depth…
A certain dark wisdom
That comes with only adversity.
And to think! Men wish themselves wise.
What fledgling fools.

I want freedom.
I want escape.
I want to rip this twining hemlock
From the mantle of my heart.
I want to tear myself apart.
To let the blood of a weary, wounded soul
Spill like paint from the bell of my horn
Onto the canvas of your mind
And let you call it art.
I want to take a train
Somewhere as beautiful as blue
I want to leave it all
I want to leave you.

What was it you asked again?
How am I?
Well, how are you?