Pariah
Dream that this is happening: We wake
up, overcome with melancholy as
if something interrupted some horrorscape of slumber.
Gasping, collapsing and suffocating the cold, humid
air. There is resistance to the labor of our breaths and
still there is dissonance in the tremors of my heart.
I’ll rub it off the page with nothing but
the oils of my fingertips – these fingertips – your fingertips? -
that I may smile and smile (villainously).
It’s an unforgivable sin that we tongueless mortals sing.
We? We sing? You do the singing, I shall sit here in silence.
- Yes… I wish I could sing too.
Instead I shall don the straitjacket – it’s chilly out, you know -
and I shall gag myself, armless as I am (the plan
is to grip the gag by the teeth; it’s grip or gripe out there).
The siren sings (that makes you one of them). So here’s the
question: did we tie me – jacket and all – strait to the mast?
Or did we forget?
Postscript: I’m so tired of this stupid semester.
