Wounded Lands: The Student's Room of Solitude

The Student’s Room of Solitude

I’ve climbed many a stair to see you
For you did once all me a friend
And many rumors I have gathered
In dream catchers and mosquito nets
What are you building in the room where you forbid loved ones to come?
I think it’s killing you my friend, with the most ancient of poisons

You know, I hardly recognize you
What winter has withered your frame?
Your stillness I find so unnerving
Please reassure me with your name
Your crow’s feet have sunk into the quicksand of despair’s elusion
Though I know not your master plan, I recognize this old dungeon

The housemaids are as tense as meerkats
The doctors shake their heads with shame
They found your drawings in the mattress
Their diagnoses won’t be tame
On the blackboard, over and over, you write a name nobody knows
Your diary is filled with riddles written in conch-spider prose



Last night I saw her in the window
Her silhouette: a morbid thing
Crafted with a Japanese perversion
No novelty of wax and string
I burned the receipt upon the stair for a cheap schoolgirl’s uniform
You call yourself Prometheus, but such tragic titles fail to adorn

And who am I now to dare judge you?
Was it not me who lead the way?
I laid you on this escalator
Promised the night and stole the day
If silence were golden then my back would surly break from this great load
I have protected you from guilt but blood makes slippery my hold

Solitude is the devil’s seducer
Do not confuse her for a cure
Your Babylon is being smoked out
Your dreams are no longer secure
Follow me once more into the night; the hounds are picking up your slack
You’ll never know if I’m really your friend until I stab you in the back




Last draft completed September 27, 2004.