by Ryan Hilary
I notice in pretty restaurants,
Erotic games and children’s toys;
The flakes of my disease.
For I am often baroque with my verbiage,
Stacking too many too high,
Too little too low.
My pulse lives in words,
Though my spirits rise with wine,
Because I am weak and lack in wealth
Come from a quiet family,
And have not suffered enough.
Often before an altar of electric light,
Working upon plastic papyrus,
I wonder if I tug as hard at the seams of others
As I do my own.
When stung by their sadness,
When retching at their ruptures,
I touch bruises, or scrape
The inner rawness
Of women and men
Who I love from afar,
But detest in intimacy
Then alone in their pain;
I find I am a stranger to my own.
junk 