eat the distance
as the emptiness turns into twins
and then into triplets, make friends with
the ghosts in your head. have imaginary
conversations about what you would say,
to the multiple versions of your object of affection.
sometimes be diplomatic, sometimes bold in
your honesty--a hand without an ulterior motive,
reaching into the interior and pulling out
the sticky gumption of unspelled words.
chew on the boundaries, digest them,
scamper from the ghosts like that iconic
yellow ball--in an increasingly uncompetitive
level of resistance to cannibalism.
feckless words, defenseless bodies,
a braintrust broken into basic instincts.
as james earl jones once quipped,
"rules? there are no rules here".
petty things, little puritanisms, obfuscate
the truth suspended between us--seeing
through ocean and drinking in air, we reject
the idea of drowning, no matter how real.
most people want to eat each other,
whether because they hate one another
or love, because their inviolable space has
been violated, because their space, immediately,
has become unbearably lonely--if only for
a moment--because of a need to devour,
because of a need to be dominant;
otherwise, a need to be dominated.
slickly veiled with correctness, like a crisco
greased lamp post--so that one may not climb
atop in an orgy of a riot--we maintain
a civil image about ourselves.
let's dispense with the decorum
and speak frankly of the words we sublimate
into gentler cousins, distantly related species
we can make a "please touch" museum of
because--specifically--they will not bite.
bite me with your verbiage,
hate me with your tongue,
fight me while fighting yourself:
show your shadow boxer to me
for he may leap into your skin,
or perhaps dissipate and leave you
defenseless--like you want to be
talking with the ghosts in my head,
there is that honesty i let be wanton
on paper--cannibals all, obsessive eaters
i stand before those alien to themselves,
like tommy lee before a space cockroach,
and i shout out, quite simply: "eat me".