The Sick Muse

My muse wakes pale and fevered
Her eyes refuse the light
She prays to saints of silence
Through another restless night

Her breath smells sweet with incense
And bitter like the ward
Each thought a slow infection
Each prayer a broken chord

She once sang pure and golden
With fire in every vein
Now every word is coughing
Every kiss a kind of pain

Her blood runs thick with longing
Her faith is thin and torn
She crowns her wounds with roses
And calls the sickness born

Oh sick muse, lie still with me
Let the fever take its time
Every sin a diagnosis
Every prayer a slow decline

Oh sick muse, bleed quietly
Let devotion bruise and use
I would rather rot in beauty
Than be healed without you

The altar smells of ether
The chapel hums with flies
The doctor speaks in psalms
And will not meet her eyes

They promise clean redemption
A cure that kills the flame
But what is art without the wound
What is love without the pain

If God demands my silence
Then let Him close my mouth
But He planted this corruption
And watched it flower out

Was this affliction chosen
Or mercy turned obscene
A holy contamination
A sacrament unclean

Oh sick muse, stay close to me
Let the darkness finish through
Every verse a complication
Every breath a residue

Oh sick muse, bless this decay
Let it take me slow and loose
I was never meant for heaven
I was born to die with you