Wednesday, May 27, 2009

taste so bitter

to know that there is a taste so bitter
that I cannot steal it off your lips
is to feel the most binding kind of incapacity

to know there is a time at night
when no touch can move you from torment
is to feel the dullest sort of inertia

to see that there is no volume of want
that can be bartered for your happiness
is to know the most complete way of poverty
with razorrunning precision
I navigate a precipice peering
at the fall on either side
slowly calculating the likelihood
that the fruity flesh in the arches of my feet
will deliver me towards an expedient decision
like long division on my fingers
my insides feel as though a sudden conference had been called
and it has been decided that any excess be efficiently swept away
to make room in case emotional acrobatics become necessary
like a deer, I have almost convinced myself that if I stand still enough
breath the shallowest whisperbreaths
cease the flutter of eyelashes, flyaways, and anticipation
that everything might go unnoticed
and yet it seems like the aching antithesis of what I am
to let motion and thought fade from my skin like snow in sun