The Drawer Marked Tomorrow

The mahogany-hearted chest is a harbor for the ships of my intent
where every ink-stained vessel is a ghost of the time I spent
I cataloged the promises like the counting of the iron-shod men
but the ink is fading into the wood like a bloodstain in a den
I swore a life of amber and light to the girl with the heavy hips
but the words are only ashes now upon my dry and weathered lips
The drawer is a mausoleum
for the versions of the man I failed to be
a sinking fleet of white parchment lost upon a silent
wine-dark sea

Tomorrow is a vacuum
a black and silver hole
sucking out the sinew and the viscera of the soul
The drawer is open wide
but the contents are a gray and shifting dust
we’re trading every heartbeat for the friction and the rust
Oblivion is the engine
and the grease is the delay
we’re washing all the colors of the universe away