“Stigmata of a Poet” 

By M. Allshouse

Stigmata of a poet—

Marks no man can see.

They chart the path I’ve walked:

A gift bestowed divinely,

A curse questioned endlessly.

The world kissed me like Judas:

A betrayal before I understood the cost.

In Gethsemane, I wept unarmed—

Condemned before I ever sinned.

A poet of human experience—my trial.

Kept alive only to be mocked and ridiculed.

Barabbas finds sanctuary,

But I am left forsaken.

Sentenced since birth

To bear the burden of emotion

I was never prepared to hold.

Each moment of anguish—

A metaphorical flogging.

Forced to wear happiness like a robe,

Contentment like a crown of thorns.

Stigmata of a poet

Is to bear the cross.

To understand love and humility,

Yet be forced to carry them—

Solitary.

Undone.

My poems are my Golgotha—

Words nailed to a cross for all to see.

They are my deepest sacrifice

As I lament in such grief:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Stigmata of a poet

Is three hours of darkness—

The most sacred parts of me

Thrust before an audience of my unraveling.

They feed me praise laced with gall,

But I refuse—

The why was never for applause.

I lay my psyche in ink—

For the masses to read and misunderstand.

I am no messiah of a promised land;

I gather the gospel of where I began.

Our roots, though winding,

Have all been the same.

But I am the one

Destined to shoulder the blame.

So as I offer myself in martyrdom

To try and unbind your mind,

Let the temple veil be torn.

Pierce me with your spear.

I offer salvation—

But you refused the divine.

Stigmata of a poet—

I do not bleed blood and water.

No—

This is all I am.

Every last part of me

Hung on this cross.

I do not seek fans.

I need kindred eyes

To witness the burial

And see clarity through my eyes.

Who look on as I’m wrapped in a shroud—

Come, strike the stone,

And mourn not me,

But the part of you I held.

You’ve found

A voice that’s known your ache

Since the womb.

Stigmata of a poet,

Bestowed upon you from the tomb.