before a single word—
a sentence, a syllable;
a pair of parentheses,
a set of quotation marks—
has been published,
so I’ll do it myself
because I’m sick of keeping it to myself;
I did this to myself,
just the way I like it—

if you listen,
you can hear the insistence
of the narcissistic mystic,
claiming,
“free
  will
  is
  your
  fate,”
echoing on forever
as he topples
  down
  an
  endless
  well.