the music vibrates my eardrums
each note possessing the dull insistence of a hammer
*
i negotiate with the speaker, plead that it drown out the hidden sound of your laugh
while I remained beneath the rapid illumination
freakishly visible,
yet profoundly alone.
*
jealousy burns a hollow in my throat,
a small, relentless poison
where words refuse to rise.
*
i look up for you again and again
but am greeted by smoke
thin, distant,
creeping and taunting where an answer should be
*
i close my eyes as if i could disappear completely, turn my very self into the colors dancing on the wall
*
i am illuminated. i am alone.
*
my shame wraps around my clothes and slips underneath with familiar hands, caressing at my chest in a foolish attempt to hold my heart
*
you know not what you have done
know not the mess you have plunged those hands deep into
*
your fingerprints turn muscle to strings, your touch reverberating against my ribs
*
you are ignorant of the catastrophic fire you ignite. you give me nothing, toss a finished cigarette onto the ground, yet my being, dry and desparate, clings to and envelopes around it.
*
if you do not begin to run you will be caught in the flames.
