Liberties
a free verse
When I don’t write…
the words do not go away
quietly into the night,
they fight back in teeth and claws.
They pile up in little stories,
aching behind my eyes
the shining dark, desperate halos
of “here is exactly what
is tearing you apart.”
Shredding my skin in
freckles of afterthoughts
while I smile and nod, and do things
to pretend I’m normal.
They expel. At times violently challenging
the unsilent force they belong to.
Gnawing on the meat of these arm bones
to set them free
of their own accord…
But they are mine — mine!
I tell them, they don’t like to listen
any more than I do. They haunt me.
Not politely, no. They stalk me.
At first they turn into the pulling away
of those thick curtains I should have
throw away.
The letting in of light, slicing any
vampiric tendencies with a denser reality —
the drawing in closer when
I have a secret that can not go
much further than these lips…
A deep, secret velvet pulling,
they want to tell the whole world
of the sacred underground I won’t lose.
Words…thoughts…little vengeful monsters
who have no concern of the me
I’ll still be in the morning.
They want it raw, and dirty.
They don’t leave their number behind.
There is no calling those lips tomorrow.
Best bear fangs and have at it.
