Forensic investigation

One wonders sometimes about the circumstances surrounding the death of an iconic writer.

Poe’s Suicide

I have a drawing of Poe on my bedroom wall.

Ballpoint pen on paper

stitches together scraps of his tired face

in a morbid mosaic.

In the negative space you can see a graveyard

pressed into his chin,

and the impossible emptiness of a skull’s sunken eyes.

The Raven in flight brands his cheekbone,

one of his metaphors

bound to him forever.

Like the word melancholy, coiled at the back of my mouth,

it lingers.

 

Edgar Allen Poe wanted stories.

He thought turning the black into words

might make monsters into fiction

might hollow out some space inside his lungs.

But fiction is a monster.

 

We see the lies it wears like bloody bandages

and accuse it of lacking subtlety–

but poison slips through easier with arrogance,

potent regardless.