Suddenly: you are
an investigation and I
with all my clues
lay drowning in a sea of
forgotten promises to
too many un-me's

(You would think these things of public forum
are private like secrets fluttered in ears
over continents, spread like wildflowers across
this unforgiving earth but you would be wrong)

for now I see the scope of love
like a marriage license, the decline of interest
from something pure (maybe too much of good)
to the cruel and horrendous incompassionate
bleeting of a black and bitter heart
like hers, you see

I am different and I will never be that
and it is my very nature to care a little
sometimes and now I do not even think I
want it:

now I have an anthem! It screams at me
through the day, reminding me. Soon it will be the top
of an arbitrary list of songs I tried to play
to erase you from my memory and to replace you
with stilted melody

you see, I am trying to raise the dead of your
words, trying to resurrect the rusted nail red
of everything you used to say but I think

you won't have that.

now you are the burgundy blood of wine, an alcohol
that permits a haze like quality, kisses I can't
remember and nights spent fighting you off with
every last insistence. it seems that was all you needed

am I an oasis? do I not drown in all of this blue?
are you not a man in skin, unmoving, goosebumps across spine?

moving on, retraining the mind in all that is
lost now, cannot be returned as if this merchandise
is tagless, mistreated and blood-gushing
my heart at you like a broken toy

and blending so inconsistent these memories
I say to someone of your same name, new spelling:

These days I am in a mass of confusion and pain, punct-
uated with bitterness and utter self-defeat

as I look out on a spread I had wanted to share with you,
my camera hiding melancholy tucked away because no more
will I catalogue with such intent, no more will you be

words of encouragement, you urge me into this new plane
of love: like a lie. I explained it in German so now I
have the language twice...ich bin eifersuchtig und traurig
weil mein Herz kaputt war. Auch, nein. Er hat keine Ahnung.

so where do we go? with these years of bloodied
commentary, pricking my skin with their constant
presence, catalogued private and the love of
another so fresh in my mind

success calls me, duty and chivalry too
(all qualities I will never find in someone like you)
and my heart is aflutter without a letter of intent
to bring to bear these questions of fury, these
muddled contents and continents and contagious ecstacies

for you are little more than a drug and I
the purity of an untainted
virgin vein

04/16/2005

Author's Note: This is a free-form, stream of consciousness type...thing about an issue I've been dealing with lately. Very therapeutic. At least partially inspired by the song "Fortress" by Pinback

Posted on 04/16/2005
Copyright © 2025 Lacey Smith