I Didn't Drink Today (Words to keep the wolves at bay)

I didn't drink today.
I wrote poems on the curves
Of that delicate body of hers;
That I will never touch
In liquor lust.
Today I was a man,
Not the wolf.
I wish I could agree
That time heals all wounds,
But I've got granite
In my eyes that just can't agree -
A hole in my back
That still bleeds,
And fingertips
That still weep
At the way I spell
That name now
With two C's.
Most men die
More than once in their life.
We crawl out of the graves
Where we're ignobly laid
Learn with what less we
We must now survive.
So I fill my hollow breast
With ink and paint,
Paper pulp and honest sweat;
The words "From here men
stake claims and surrender
to the heart's first debt" inked
By distressed hands
To the nape of her neck
Running down to caress
The parchment of her breasts.
The absence of lust apparent
In the passion of inspiration -
No words have ever been bound
In so beautiful of a book.
Would that I could
Have left without loss
Before she fled,
Bearing away that which is vital,
That which lets hearts beat
That which lets hands trust
But -
A man can not live
So hollow and haunted
And must be filled in;
For those who remain hollow
Will drift away with
The most aimless of winds.
So I write epitaphs,
Funeral rites and prayers
Of morning and rebirth
On beautiful things
Hoping one day, perhaps
After another death -
They will anchor me to verdant earth,
The memories of silk screened skin
And eyes stained by grave girt.
I didn't drink today,
In hopes the written words
Will keep the wolf at bay.
Because I see my
Next death in his eyes,
My blood on his muzzle -
If I am to ever be slain
And reborn again,
I'd have it be by graceful
Words written on my muses skin;
In art, passion and beauty -
Not green glass bottles
Or rampant half remembered beds
Both reeking of whiskey.