12 - Spark

I don't think it was the sadness.
No, more likely just the faint
afterglow of madness 
that settles in the brain.

Like a slow-growing infection, 

a cancer of a sort,

that then takes a new direction,

and cauterizes the heart.

Did he feel it in his chest then?

Did his rib cage start to ache?

Or, was it somewhere deeper, 

starting from the bottom of the nape 

and slowly moving downward

with a gravity of force 

to that place beneath the sternum, 

where it started a new course.

To the spine, now he is frozen

an irony of shame, 

it becomes a numb illusion, 

a memory of pain.

Does he sleep it, does he eat it?

Can he feel it in the night?

That place where something's missing

from deep deep down inside. 

No, no, I think he'll be fine, 

they almost always are. 

It's just a subtle shadow, 

of a hole, deep in the heart. 

It's just a distant echo

of what used to be a spark.