Born incorrect,
unexpected,
accident of timing
and of shame.
Made his name out of spite,
out of a steel memory
and a vineyard tongue.
As the name grew
he loved everything
less and less, little
by little, until brief recall
was all that remained.  Cut
and drank and smoked into
himself.  Farther and farther
behind he fell,
a remnant of the blaze
he saw in the mirror
once.  Someone said
they loved him, but
he licked his bones
clean of the words.   
He liked alone
more than together,
silent more than aloud,
and still he talked too much
and knew he talked too much
and made insane connections
among prosaic things.  Harder
and harder for others
to bear, he longed for
a stamp that said
“Worthy” and when 
he could no longer see
a reason for it, he tramped
away and in the forest
where he once had said
“I will be…this,” he knelt and 
carved, instead, “I was never”
on his last clean artery,
and so he pitifully 
passed into that truth
and was thus proven 
completely correct.