How to Murder a Poet. 

 

Sometimes, a poet chokes on her own words

She swallows vowels and consonants

So hard, they cut her throat until she bleeds

Sharp splinters of her life take over

And render her to her knees

 

Swallowed by shadows of what might have been

She fades into bittersweet memory

The future fails to exist

As she exits through what could have been

Only to arrive at the corridor of regret

 

Words, once so sweet 

Become daggers that no one

Not even her

Care to read

Her only hope is to forget

 

The demons grow stronger

Under duress

They feed with a frenzy

Devouring her grief as if scratching themselves

Out of famine 

 

Leaving the poet to starve

Until she can no longer swallow

Even a raindrop to quench her thirst

This is how the poet dies

 

Her words become weapons 

Turned against her

Until she chooses silence

And suffocates in her own misery

Leaving only the monsters

To survive. 

Clare Kinnaird, 2026. 

 

How to Murder a Poet.