Reclusive Tendencies

The boketto begins, no one is to blame,
your meraki has fallen from your work,
you’ve traveled in silence to keep from
screaming, this fanaa eats away like cancer,
you’ve never reached out for a hand or any smile,  yet
your futifaction glares back in gruesome 
hollowness, life’s become something more than
you’ve bargained, you’ve squandered away all
your hopes, your last dream is vacated by grief,
once an oriflamme of misery now’s your only
embrace of comfort, this adoxography placates 
your need to be heard or to be accepted but 
this Orphic is all you desire, you’re seldom
enthusiastic of some fancy mention of trivial 
wares, for your eudaimonia cannot be bought or 
secured by some shallow penchant, this genie 
won’t return her gift; one must first recognize 
one’s despair to begin to love and what keeps you
willfully alive, death owes no promise to you, 
but living in this imperishable hope of retrieving 
lost legitimacy is all that requires of this loathing 
penance, you’ve lengthened your mind to vast 
catharsis, where very few ever run amongst 
and up against the small gods who wrought 
you to this point, welcome. 

- John Hardesty 

©️1/23/2020