Of all the mundane throughout my days,

I take the words reeking of cliche

And wrap it in a big, flowery bow.

They belong to minds much greater than mine—

A different metaphor for every open door—

Who do I think I am? The next Poe?

The next Plath? Hemingway?

Alls I need is a little copacetic, pathetic swig of liquid courage

To get the gears spinning inside my rotting brain.

Head in the gas chamber of my father’s secrets

And the wounds of my mother’s womb

Left scars that scribble could not cover.

Brilliance defiled by overthinking.

Virgin’s grace,

Innocence shed blood on the eve of my sixteenth year.

Thrown about like my lover’s sloppy seconds.

I’m never the first choice.

Nor the last.

Inspiration is merely my poetic purgatory.

Running on empty—

My only fuel being the fossils of the greatest visionaries—

I stop to fill up,

And plagiarize their struggles—

The madwoman.

The drunkard.

The lonely philosopher.

Crossing out their names,

And scratching my own into the fresh dirt upon their graves.