When you speak
I don't listen
I absorb your words
I allow them to sink into my bones
I beg them to destroy me from within
Atom by atom
A chain reaction
A cellular Doctor Device
That begins in my marrow
And ends with the incineration
Of the outermost layer of every
Obsessively parched pore

When you speak
I'm not enlightened
The entire universe falls into darkness
Except for your words
Every syllable you utter shines
With a brilliance that doesn't spread
But drains
Every star of its glory
A brilliance that calls it all into question
A brilliance that leaves me wondering
Why I'd ever been born

And when you speak
I'm not alive
The universe dies
There is no movement
No gravity
No inertia
No friction
The breeze stops blowing
The trees stop growing
The electricity
That once flowed through my veins
Can no longer elicit a single heartbeat
And I discover
Just how pointless my efforts ever were

And when you finish
When you've said what you wanted to say
And every perfect syllable is in its perfect place
When the stars start shining and
The planets start moving and
The breeze and the trees are blowing and growing once more

When the oxygen claws its way back into my lungs

I exhale with a smile

And anxiously await the next verse