The Face of Man

You thrive in living theatre,
Stealing space in the crevices
Between the black-ink block letters on pulp paper;

Hiding behind an improvised script of all the right words
To craft a Shakespearian narrative
Tragic enough to justify
Tearing down the stage around you.

Ten years of friendship
Led to ten broken fingers
Worth of handshake agreements:
Your history of heroic deeds
Remains stained with blood signatures
Of all the favors you felt owed
From under silent contracts,
And slit-wristed suicide notes
Deflecting against all the times
You were called out
On your fraudulence.

You wrap the mask
Around your skull
Like a child wraps himself in his blanket:
You know you are faceless.

That shining beacon of hellfire
Burning in your eyes may not be bright enough
To cover the dark you fear so deeply,
But it’s damned sure warm enough
To decimate the fruits of my emotional labor
As you go to war with yourself.

So for every cut word from your razor-blade tongue,
That you’ve laid upon those you love,
I hope to god you listen close–
My “Good Samaritan,”
My Judas,
My Narcissus:

I hope you asphyxiate
On all the pathetic truths you refuse to say,
And hang from the tale you’ve spun.

You’ve fallen so deeply in love with your own image,
That you now kiss the ocean floor.
So crawl along the sediment.
Become a worm in the earth
You’ve refused to sow.
​
You know it’s where you belong.

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WILLIAM E. HESTON
is a poet, sketch artist, and up-and-coming filmmaker from Philadelphia, PA.
Much of his work is based in finding spiritual influence in everyday life.

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