Oh Robert Smith, how you professed
your denial of being Goth,
and I know being labeled
the indirect godfather of emo
is something you may not agree with either
although, the argument belongs to other bands,
no one quite gathered all of this cultivated loss
& made ballads that pierced through the chasms
of my angst quite like the tablature you wrote,
penning out ink from reincarnated wounds
bleeding out the black in your mascara
and the crimson in your lips
now it’s 2018
and my inner child of self-destruction
is invoked from day-lit stillness
& auditory horns from the entries
of someone else’s diary sound
as the aftermath of hell’s bells toll
this is the world entrapped
in rippling timelines;
& the tunes we need
aren’t joyful distractions,
but the reminders of our sorrow
through your sorrow