Venus eye trap please
Accept my humblest apologies
for allowing these normally perfectly well behaved pupils
To rove carelessly across this shuddering carriage
And interlock with your own
For just a fraction
Of a moment
Too long.

From two rows ahead
On the 42 bus.

Through no fault of my own I was caught off guard by a sudden and unexpected spike in interest,
That caused my eyes, hypnotized
To run their boorish and misogynistic fingers over the gleaming contours of your beautiful
Ivory toothed smile.

Stolen goods. Simply intercepted.
Not delivered to this godforsaken countenance
But to the infinitely more charming
Disembodied voice at the end of the line
Invisible, omnipotent
He's just shared with you what must be the best joke ever told by man.

Yes! I greedily consumed the ill-gotten merchandise and shamefully enjoyed it.
Quivering with benign, desperate exhilaration like the man whose jaw is slowly locking around the cold and tasteless barrel of a gun.

Press no charge. It won't happen again.

A grim vision on prescription pills
A future you hope there's still time to avoid.
Because beneath all the cheery waving
And bubbling surface-level conversation
Lurks the same bad wound that won't heal if it's covered.

That itches

Just turns to stagnant mush
Sticking to the crusted pillow.
Yearning for fresh air
Aching for exposure, the sun and wind and rain and stars.
Desperate to impress, to repulse
To spread beyond the derelict tomb
To which this episode of history has been condemned to rot.

So become not the pitiful ****
Upon whom your judging eye scornfully rests,
And instead burst forth in a tidal wave
Of hot bile and vitriol
Dripping from the bloodied fingernails.

It will not be pretty
But then neither are you.

Sorry it ended up like this.

Me out here, still wrapped up warm in my vestigial garment of flesh.

You in there, naked amongst your primitive ancestors like the youngest adult at a wedding, mingling awkwardly, embarrassed.

I wonder how you died. Your ribs look like they have been fixed back together after some kind of trauma.
A car crash maybe?

Maybe you struggled with long term illness, rotting before you ripened like a sickly bud in a wet spring.

However it happened your bronze plaque states it was untimely and therefore probably tragic. '(A young woman)' I read, not so much discovering but confirming what I already knew to be true when I first laid eyes first met yours across the crowded room.

You stand about as tall as me, your shining off white cheeks delicate as fine china. Staring out of you glass cabinet, you seem to beg not to be judged alongside your distant relatives, your slumping neighbors.

Fragile and sweet, you radiate a quiet dignity. It isn't hard to imagine the thin layer of blood, skin and fibrous tissue that it would take to make you beautiful again.

I plunge my hand through that glass portal, soft folds of meat transposed to brittle bone and back again, unifying you world with the mortal

It was obvious that you were beautiful, and involuntarily I envy the one who held you and kissed you last.

I wonder if anyone ever wrote a poem for you when you were alive.

It's time again for your inspection,
Time to make some minor corrections;
Squeezing out each new infection
Eliminating imperfections.

It's not cathartic -it's not bold
To just sit back and lose your hold
and let this lunacy unfold
unendorsed but uncontrolled

And YES! You really had a go;
the flakes of flesh did fall like snow,
ten jagged daggers, dripping, soak
In a red and ragged afterglow.

And then just when you think you know
it's over and you've stemmed the flow
a tiny tumour starts to grow
and it's time again to face your foe.

So the bell tolls and the round begins,
this time it's not about who wins
the wide mouthed open sore still grins
forgiving you for all your sins.

And when you stopped your childish games
the mirror did burst into flames
and burned, and now that remains
are tatters, ashes and bloodstains.