Familiar Taste of Blood

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
it comes 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
 
constructing 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 struggle 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