my skin crawled with agony when the word commitment ran across his smooth lips
   the hair on my neck began to stand and salute the air, which had gone stale and silent
my hands frozen with the frost of mid-December, but sweat of the heat of July
   my heart, later to sound like African tribal drums in an important boy-to-man ceremony
why is this word death to the future
and why do i run to and away from it