I
I taste it daily.
The salt of consequence on the side of my tongue,
Burning my mouth.
Punishing me.
Love is lost.
Shallow and low,
Like a pool of water
Two feet deep,
Predictable and **** flavored.
I taste every answer before it’s heard.
But I deny it just the same.
I dig for the unpredictable.
Muddying my hands in search of
A new flavor.
Drunk as I am at 4 in the morning,
I ask for an answer that I’ve already tasted,
Hoping to be surprised.
I’m not.
I’m given an answer that I already know.
But I pursue it just the same.
I send poems to lost loves,
Knowing they won’t answer,
But I do it just the same.
I find myself alone.
I’ve accepted it.
But I crave companionship,
Just the same.
Like the grass in my pipe.
I crave it.
Love it.
But it kills me.
II
Don’t make it awkward.
Don’t say it.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
Don’t say it.
Don’t make it awkward.
You already know,
I say.
No I don’t,
She says.
She’s lying
I know it.
I taste it.
She lives in bliss.
I live in fire.
Don’t say it.
Don’t make it awkward.
I don’t know.
She says this to dampen a blow
That I won’t feel.
I’ve felt it too many times.
Maybe she didn’t know.
III
I’ve lost the sense of caring,
I say it just to say it.
Knowing the answer.
Just to see what happens.
And again I’m forced to move on.
To know that it’s unreciprocated
As it so often seems to be.
Insufferably predictable.
Six months I knew,
Yet I hoped to be surprised.
IV
Somehow,
Confidence remains,
Or perhaps it was born.
Resilient as the day it fell out of the womb.
Unphased by negative response,
Simply frustrated,
Urged to move forward and brush off the needles
Poking at its chest and temples and tongue.
How can a heart die if it has already been pierced?
V
I’ll keep digging,
Searching for a new flavor
Until something sweet sticks.
Until some light shines through the cracks.
I’ll make it awkward.
I’ll make it weird.
I’ve been pierced enough.
I’ve been numbed long enough.
Stab me again.
Try it.
Pick a vein.
Try it.
I hope to feel it.
I want to feel it.
VI
True sadness
Is something that can’t be described.
For some,
Fresh and temporary.
Others,
Old and rooted.
Experienced in different ways
Left to ferment
Through a curious cathartic flavor of isolation.
I’ve fallen into that deep void
before.
Seeking companionship where there is none.
Only to be stabbed in a living heart,
countless times
Until it finally stopped beating.
A sequence following the past, present and future.