dark days

it's been eighteen years now,
that you've spent tricking me
twisting my arm
like a gary oak tree

cracking my knees
bruised on cement

and i've broken every bright dime
i've worked hard every dark day
cackling in sorrow, howling in pain

still it seems
every bleak morning
december knocks on my door
smiling and crazy and shaking his fists

i've given him copper and rind
diamond and drill
i've given him foxglove and pewter
and all my chagrin

still it seems it's never enough,
had he arrived one year earlier
he would have left charred and burnt
flesh peeled and smoked
scorched broke and tamed

instead I've drowned eighteen times
and i'll do it again