The Poet in My Head

There is a disease that haunts the poet and drives him on to write,

A chronic condition which drains the bearer and keeps him up at night.

I, myself, suffer from this illness, and there is no mortal solution,

Except to welcome in these demons and give way to poetic delusion.

The darkness opens my inner soul, which shrinks from any light,

I feel these poetic demons crawling out, desperate for a fight,

They find the barriers of my mind and claw through its weak defenses,

I'd better stop them where they roam or forgive all my senses.

Their wicked beauty falls out of me and streams into my head,

I follow the haunting melody that fills me with cold dread.

Words form and caress my tongue and hand and pen alike,

I then scratch out the rough language that they cursed me to write.

To surrender to them, I feel relief: a warm, numbing salvation,

That drinks its way into my veins and then rots into a poison,

It scents the path to my brain and opens wide the gates,

To fulfill this ingrown enemy and release my bottled hate.

This is my illness, my disease; I know my fatal condition.

The choice is up: live long and suffer at the hands of my poetic affliction,

Or turn and write - oh sleepless nights! - and give in to these demons,

Who give me a day's respite then return with entire legions.

This is my issue, my dilemma, my fate, an eternal pestering cause,

To which I donate my mind and body to write their demanding laws.

And every night, you'll find me awake, lying in my bed,

Dying of an inward monster - the poet in my head.