Shaped by Experience

This is not a thought.

It is a spiked ball that rolls restless and pin-pricks
down
each
vertebra
till it lodges
and waits,
for sleep, for sober, for silence, then pierces so
one by
one by
one
more pour in.

A dam breaks with neglect,
so too this vessel,
fit to burst.

When it does there’ll be no red flag,
just a smoulder of regret and
a promise.

Never again.