Shrapnel Poem by Mark Heathcote

Shrapnel is working its way out.
Out of my head and heavy laden chest;
every-bad deed and thought has an infected wound
puss seeps through my fingers like a rotting potato,
and when I hold another's heart, it's soiled with sin.
My soul is on a landmine, and I'm being dared to-
step on the pin, enter a minefield with no-
beginning or end in sight.

Sure, it's a war between good and evil
trying not to keel over before my times up,
trying to keep up and achieve some semblance of balance.
But the scales are always tipped and negatively weighted.
There is no equilibrium, the shrapnel-is-moving
within fatal margins piercing my liver and lungs
my soul is septic, a blistering sore, and within fractions
this shrapnel shall move on, and I'll not feel it hurt anymore.