while you

 

lose your face in altered states

mistaking situations like supermarkets in foreign places for outer space

 

i

 

dance to the rhythm of your potential and rarefied brilliance

caress your discarded harp

 

ponder how i have nothing to offer

while giving you everything

 

across the vast expanse of the atlantic
 [bad word] down to semantics

 

this frantic war of the words

 

you make me feel like i’m stealing something

when what i want is to hand over every last bit of me

 

and all i’ve got is nothing

but these penniless definitions

falling all over themselves

to get their 2 cents in

 

talk is cheap

nevertheless i go for broke

 
 [bad word] worthless verses

which you belittle like its inevitable destiny

 

its not easy to battle with

an [bad word] full of low self esteem

 

public defender

for inner criminal guilty as sin

 

you always win

listen

 

all i do is rise to fall

 

like boomerangs, orbiting planets, and dogs in heat

you always return to your point of entry

as predictable as 1before2before3

 

your oppressive weighs heavy

portentous like smallpox soaked blankets

dangerous like its own omen

 

i crawl out from under your thumb

and end up backed against the wall

breathless and accused

i shake off the rain of your negativity

chilled to the bone

and i get wound up so tight

this massive mortal coil

makes double helixes look relaxed and loungey

 

and you,

you make a better idea than human being

better in theory than practice

 

you

with your manic depressive passive aggressive propensity

to simultaneously create and avoid tension

 

you twist my intention like taffy

baffling me pink soft and harmless as baby hand

 

you decide what i mean before i’ve even spoken

 

(son of mercilessly [bad word] with)

 

(we all got some walls up)

(its understandable)

 

but i refuse to play stand-in for the role of your former assailant

 

this pulling

familiar taste of blood like sucking pennies

second nature in the mouth of a prizefighter

 

rearranging on the cellular level like metastasized panic

 

dancing with your deluge of demons like it takes 200 to tango

 

try to put me in my place

give me something to really [bad word] against

 

its this genetic predilection towards rejection

i can not reason out this itch in my palms

or rhyme your name out of my dream mantras

it is like vomit on my tongue now

 

it is a precarious position to be in

i am a daredevil who dives headlong eyes closed, wrists open

 

playing chicken with dignity

 

always braced for collision