Poem for Today

Thief

Are you a gambler?

Wagering on this life,

Trading your days,

For love and friends.

Did you think you must be alone?

Nothing needing you?

You believed it so much, you made it your truth.

Or is some old scar,

Still teasing you with its gentle ache?

Are you a thief?

Collecting memories for yourself,

Making them from others’ limbs and thoughts,

Then stealing them,

Leaving empty houses.

We are waiting for a card to turn,

As I play this game with you,

But I don’t even know the rules,

And I knew - I would always lose,

In your goodbyes.

Aug 2011

Poem for Today

Taste

Melting quick, like chocolate in summer,
Smeared on hands, enrobed in sweat,
Sticky, sweet and salty,
It becomes like glue, cloying me.

Blending into a nothing shape,
I feel the life go out of me,

A dissolving sticky mass,

The taste is still there, but it is blurred.


Everything I have for you stains my hands and clothes,
My mind is discolored, permanently tinted,

It can't be rubbed off,

It's not so sweet when I taste my fingers.

July 2011