Cold, so cold had his heart become, this

Bitter old man who scowled at himself

As he shaved, a permanent expression

Frozen in place by years of practice, or

Perhaps by the ice that pumped through

His veins like stagnant rivers choked

With polluted intentions, where dead

Things rotted in the muck of his regard.

The house in which he lived seemed a

Mirror image, an abstract portrait that

Revealed much more than the face

Looking back at him, a place where

Cobwebs held corners together, walls

Stained yellow by years of unfiltered

Regrets met with ceilings plastered by

Cracked ambitions, and fed the darkness there.

A phone jack stood empty near a vanity

Haunted by old photographs that lay

Facedown on its dusty surface, doing little

To exorcise the memories that possessed him

In the smallest hours, there, wrapped in tangled

Sheets that reeked of solitude, the night a shroud

He clung to with quiet desperation, lest fatigue

Pull him down to where those old ghosts walked.

But now, as he dragged the razor across one

Grizzled cheek with a hand stained the same

Color as those walls, he doesn’t feel its blade

Pierce the flesh just below his left ear-an ear

Thick with wax he could care less about-nor

Does he pay any mind to the small trickle of

Blood that oozes from the wound, blood that

Is soon smeared by the next swipe of the blade.

Scowling, the old man continues to shave.

END

“Bitter”