the regrets of a lesser being

[John Holland]

So life,
I’ve been neglecting you?

Spending all my time
as a man-servant to anxiety.
A slave to black depression?

As a token of my regret
I offer you this gift
of peerless beauty.

Wrenched from beneath my ribs.

Formed into a likeness
of what life must be like
for the pure and the guiltless.

This love I have shaped
with my own two hands.

Working the raw red clay
until my hands dripped scarlet

all over

the splintered bench.