An Evil Pearl
There is a weight on my shoulders,
A burden on my back.
It accretes slowly, unnoticed, growing,
An evil pearl
Made acceptable
With layers of nacre
To smooth the rough edges
And bouts of long association
To round the corners.
It is strange that things,
When contemplated late at night
In the ghastly hours before sleep,
Or in the ghostly hours
Of early morning,
Fade with time and long familiarity.
The mind shutters,
The body compensates.
It insulates.
It isolates.
Unpleasantries become commonplace
And the commonplace become as nothing.
Still, that burden remains.
It is an irritant that will not go away,
Ever more pressing as it fades,
Forever entangled with it’s source.
So conspicuous in its absence
But never less than nothing.
I have a duty, an obligation, a need
To to reply in kind.
If not in kind,
Then at least within reason.
Palimpsest 
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