Life upon the Floors

Deep. Delve. Dove. Door. Shore. Shoal.
Shell. Shelved. Shelled. Shelling. Selling.
Barter. Garter. Bitter. Biter. Bitter.
Fighter.

Deep beneath the ocean floor
There lives a witch
And nothing more
Delving deep in midnight pitch
Plumbing depths of starry life
Seeking doves in drunken ditch
Making sacrifice to love & strife
Tempered by being called a bitch.

Doctors open on the ocean floor;
In succession, gawkers gather,
Standing grimly, seeking solace on the shore
Gazing into sunken shoals they flatter,
Finding shells of things that we abhor:
Hard-won husks from sunken hearts a-tatter,
Children shelved, their tearful smiles ignored,
Till they're shelled by parents too grown to matter.

Selling hollow, younger faces
To prisons, patrons, paters galore;
Bartering their youthful, gainful paces
Until their garters gather something more,
Garnering only just enough attention
To retire their aching sphincters from the fore
Collecting their ever-rotting pension
From off the fustian floor.

Abandoning their young upon the floor.
Too cold to leave, too grown to sleep,
Picking themselves from off the floor.
Somehow finding ways to keep
Their bitter bitters inside their helpless sores
Driving them to biting hands that leaps
To feed their bitter maws something more.
Fighting the urge that makes them weep
And turns babes a-baeuty into naught but gore.
I think I'll sleep upon the floor.