A Shadow with Pigment

The nothing inside me sips the arsenic rich air

And synthesizes the compounds into a cocktail of butterscotch and heroin.

My pure tongue dips into the stew of sweet carcinogens.

The spiced toddy fills me with sweetened doubt,

Reminding me that even though piles of life remain unsearched,

I will never find myself in them.

But I keep looking anyway,

Digging through piles of sand and names

And gaining nothing but dirt beneath my fingernails.

It's time for me to look away.

To find some other dumpster to melt into.

But I'm attached to the base of this tree.

Forever a no one.

Forever a shadow.