The lotus and the opium eaters:

I have obsessed and watched, 

curling my senses around 

each and every self-professed hunger, 

waiting for one deeper than the loss 

of the poem. I have waited for 

the confirmation of a bloatedness indulged 

again, and again until there is nothing left 

to feed off of, except for the flowers;

always the flowers, 

and the sin. To rub its dust 

against soap sullied skin, 

whistle in the smoke of its finery, 

turning in my stomach, 

down and past swollen tongue, 

I sit forever dying beyond 

the boundaries of my origins. 

Then, the eyes, 

fixate themselves 

on lines such as 

"With what eyes these poets see" 

and interchangeably, 

"it must have been petty when 

they took her eyes," because 

every poem borrows and steals. Phrases 

to lead me here again, and again; 

past the flowers and always past the sin. 

A hunger I will always know 

to be wretched and ugly, while I sit 

with the shades we work beside 

and look through their dead eyes, 

asking myself how many 

lotus petals fell before God 

turned away and knew 

himself not alone.