'The biggest problem with communication is that we don’t listen to understand, we listen to respond.'

You trace my bottomless eyes to the pit of my stomach
You stare at the tip of my tongue,
With that sordid tang on it;
Reassure me now,
I am not the cause of it.

Taste, but not too late
The stuff of which
I am made.
Never think
I would clean the bottom
Piety of your sink

Would you hear me?
Muffled in a crowd?
Where my delusions
Of your confusions
Are shrouded

I smell repugnance
And make nothing of it
O the fancies of tongues
Bowed, I make nothing of it
In the crowd I hear your sound
I make nothing of it
My rejoinder blaring loud
You make nothing of it

The boil of the grey water
Murky glasses unclean -
Silent unorderly

I make a run for it.

A cry for help
Sometimes sounds like,
"Hey! How was your day? Tell me everything."
But I am not genuinely concerned about the buffets you ate
Or the guy who complimented you while you were both at the parking lot - not that I mind hearing about your purple dress and his dreamy, deep voice - for a fifth, sixth, eighth time
Not that I mind anything. I am more than fine
Knowing about your old aunt's hellick habit of interfering in your personal life
Her probing questions and your oh so smart turndowns
"That would teach her!" Of course,
I don't mind, I don't mind
As long as it fills my silence
As long as it shuts the madman pinning needles in my mind
Tell me how your day was.

Conversation.
That's how it starts,
Doesn't it, a relationship,
And that's why it ends,
When there is none.