Your words sizzle,
spouting fire in the back of my mind
from kindling
to flames from the maw of an unappeased dragon.
They twitch at my lips,
begging to be set free
but I keep them trapped.
They want to flee
so my mind rinses cleaner than Pilate’s hands.
They cling like spiders to my gums,
finding holes from which to poke
a solitary spindly leg
and then explode,
scattering shadows and hallucinations
and vocabulary *****.
But now the monsters are lurking in corners
not just in my brain
and they reach out with scaly claws
to brush passersby on the shoulder
or neck
and I am Pandora and you are
the box.