I awake ill to the burning crust’s light, 
sick with a throb, hungry as its hammering tick, 
the nails in my head driven down into song, 

It saws at me, carves away to make me whole, 
as a surgeon killing cancer with the rest of the flesh, 
the scalpel frees the heart, kills the flow, 

That’s my day – sullied by the purity, 
stained as crisp rain on the asphalt roads, 
gnattered and battered this beating on my head, 
which follows my steps to iron drums down the street, 
the surgeon freed the heart, bloodletting killed the flow, 

I am made less whole, but what’s separate is dead, 
the gnats and flies are thankful, the least still give their least, 
the smallest parts of me, the black rot is a feast, 
I should be thankful for that, pests shall birth their beasts, 

That’s my joy – cast off down these dirty streets, 
rancid and ruined in the flow of the thunder’s true beat, 
reverberating between air, dancing on the breeze, 
those brief claps interludes where the carnage is cleared, 
though, still shake the weary bones, still the storm’s afeared, 

I’m awake and kept up, it’s smashing, splattering on the hollowness of the human mind, 
crystal-clear casualties burning wet and fresh on the side of the glass, 
and the human brain nods to its ponderings alone, 
and the distant rain dies on its doors, the windows pain, 
a thousand bones sutured – and on the skull all stain, 
the scalpel dulls upon the stones, the gems of blood, blood rain, 

The throb goes on, thy drums deranged, the hammer chipped; the womb castrates, 
teeth belong down there after all, where human joy begets true pain, 
and songs are born to die, at least, 
and pests beget the violent beasts, 
and the throb goes on – cracking and blind, 
and the song whines on with the river where was street, 
dragging longer than skies still sick with the beat 
in the dingy amber muck the lovestruck dub dawn. 
The desire to carve real venison – the surgeon’s song unsatisfied.

Titan Wiles is a burgeoning poet attempting to make landfall in the field of professional writing. They are currently in attendance at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, majoring in English.