Fickle Companions

poem about good servants and bad masters

Cotton dried up all the words.
I used to flood the room with them, put out
fires before I started lighting them. I spilled
so many you couldn’t hear the spaces,
even between sentences. 

I can’t find my way around       
phrases anymore, they don’t 
sniff out my pen. So much smoke left

I forgot that letters burn like candles,
lit at both ends and the scent’s strongest
where there’s the least sense, but

candles burn like letters, they leave
behind the smell of what they’re made of 
and this is made from neither cotton, nor wax.

¹art by Pragna Gaddamedi (@prgs.jpeg)

---

Poetry Tip of the Day!

I think a lot about aphorisms. Sayings, clichés, expressions, slang, etc. are more interesting than the ideas they represent because language is made for and by human beings. The more words we give to something, the more important that thing is to us. Words, intellect, dopamine, and feelings are all “good servants and bad masters.” What are your fickle companions?

---

1. chaos illustrator