Afflatus

Self-Correction

With long flowered fingers you could explore your head 

your very own head

(your very own head)

pry apart the skull with red-painted fingernails

that scrape and scratch your skin

eat out your brain

Eat out your brain

Child of the mountains, reined on

your very own moss, grown in your garden

outside of a crude stone cottage

next to a murky brown creek,

mossbeds surrounded by rounded stones,

all chocolate-ebony and smelling

of earth

that is when you have to pull out

your cultured claws

and eat out your brain.

Your very own brain.

You wish you could paint those talons

and set them on a purse and force

your fat scaly body into a pretty dress

your elongated wide feet into heels

and dance.

But you eat out your brain

Burn the ends of your fingers

no fraying here,

You eat out your brain,

like a slushy, so sticky, so smooth

so stringy.

eat out your brain

(eat out your brain)