What if you were?
different
waking up putting your feet over the side of the bed
with the harsh unrelenting knowledge before you think of anything else
I am trapped inside myself
these are my feet cankered and worn with little parchment lines drawn
for every regret I possess
I can hide all day from seeing them but come night, climbing into bed, still they will remind
you are subject to yourself
what if you are a raging inferno within smoked glass?
and everyone buys the exterior version that comes with a label?
choose your own go on, you know you want to
write it in permanent pen on the underside of my third finger
it is human bondage
as ad-verb the moustached man picks ‘mysteriously’
the Irishman says a noun; ‘predictable’
the Hipster proclaims adjective; ‘too old’
the Gen-X femme fatale scolds; ‘not enough visible scars and I hate how she can wear a skirt that tight over her scales’
and you? You don’t speak because you traded in your words for a shot and then another
drunk neat and with your elbow at perfect ninety degree angle
reflecting the awkwardness of ritual in bar window smeared with tarot gravy dust
you do not tell me
stop wearing hose in 70 degrees and if you must, choose pastel hues or flesh
flesh is the color of us all and none at all, for wolves come in multi-color and neon
you do not tell me
cut your hair though it has begun to trail across the bar like ivy once won will entomb even the redolent doll faces who obey without query their whiskered diviner
let’s see how far it goes before the world implodes, then we can sell it by the ounce for bonfires or new clothes
you do not correct
my pronouncement of life or the syllabus of strife I work against my sulfur state with enriching purpose
you could knock me off my slide so easily, bring your trained fist to my cheek, salt the wound pour a little rum and black call me a new blend of this and that
here drink it down and turn into tarmac
you could run over me, keep me flat or press your iced lips to my heat and have me beg
but it’s been a long B side and it’s time for the rain to ease, where drivers, previously intent, lessen up, watching for a break of light through cloud formation
you know why I stand here, pressing my hips against your side, empty me, chamber my void
you take me by the throat, lay me down in my own match book to sleep, watch the children dream, how deeply they ride their velvet horses
you bought me rings without names and names without ownership
I own the fierce tail of my pursuit and not much else
when we lie beneath the city listening to her caw
you are still as cold water washing over me in rinse and roar
it’s not your way to feel
you love without desire
desire without love
the rub and the rub and the rub
no fire will come
it is my conjecture this will end when the rain starts again and cars slow down even more to peer in
tin-can blurred faces seeing nudes vaulting tables and a man holding a gun
gentle as a lover without fingerprint
you place it in my mouth
then yours
the taste and smell of fire
would you have time to bruise?
briefly
before
retort