Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Residue

There's a pin in my shoulder. It's a metal pin, titanium.
It pulls me down and holds me in place but when I stretch,
I wince. 
It's a minor thing, this wincing. It's a barely there, hardly worthy
mention. But still, when I breathe, I wince. 
It's the same thing when I talk. My lungs pinch
They pinch me like they're trying to hold the words inside....as though...
well, as though they want only the sound, only the essence to escape my throat
and leave the residue of alphabet to coat my throat. 
Again, it isn't something that impairs my life. It's just a trickling, trifling afterthought
of discomfort. It's a barely there, hardly worthy mention. 
There's something else inside my skin, just like the pin, just like the pinch.
It's a nagging, probing itch, the kind that wakes you up
and won't let you think. 
I can scratch it all I want but 
it's always there. 
Sometimes I forget to scratch, because I think I forget--at times--
what it's like to not itch. 
These are trivial things. Barely there, hardly worthy mentions. 
But still. They are, simply, the symptoms of living. Of living
the way I chose to live. They are the cigarettes and the street fights
they're the rope burns and needle scars. 
They are, like you, residue
of a life I chose with you.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Confession

I have a confession waiting under the hood of my tongue.
I'm going to chew it, gnaw on it, tear it down with my teeth
but I pray, tonight I pray that instead of swallowing it I will instead
release it into the midnight air and let it breathe.
 Oh lord I've waited. I've waited so long my bones have turned to glass and I've melted
into the satin silk of my wedding gown.  I've grown fragile in the sun, brittle.
I was strong once, so strong. Like the trunk of the mystic oak and now I've been weathered down, beaten. 
Perhaps, if there was a fire, a bonfire a wildfire, something ANYTHING
to get me to lift my feet, my roots if you will and MOVE.
I'm so tired. I'm so tired of watching the grass grow old and die at my feet
and me still so tied down by some unknown non-relief. 
I pray. Today I pray that my confessions and my sins will fall into the earth
that having given birth 
I can finally be free
and claw my way
out of the dirt.