A Mad Canary Poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr

The night halts
In a fashion
Of a child
Intruding a chamber
Of haunting dreams.

Sometimes when I sleep,
It’s as if
The night
Gives
Me modest
Nudges as if
Telling me,

”Wake up
Die some more.”

And I swear to god
A figure
Laughed inside
Of me
And his sinister chortle
Reverberated
In a mad cavil.

But the night
Wasn’t so clever
At all -
Embellished
By allegories
Of a night
So shrewd.
Not so much
A witty night.

What the
Night didn’t know
Was that,
I sleep only
To halt
A death so great
And bold.
It’s in the hours
Where my eyes
Are in a full-circle
That I continue
To die a gruesome
Death
That can be
Decoded
In between lines.

I wish to know
How you die
But then
That’d be an insult.

I am a mad canary
Dying to get
Out of this world,
This freedom
That only binds me
Closer to nothing
But electric sadness -

I want a cage.
I WANT A CAGE
THAT ONLY I
WOULD OCCUPY.