Spellbound
I am not enchanted.
The dreams come
but they are not dreams at all
and I am not asleep.
Your hand sliding up my thigh
and your groan slicks itself onto my neck,
embeds itself into my skin.
I wear the remnants
of your ecstasy in my flesh still.
It crawls when any other nears it.
It came to be that your bed-side clock
replaced my fearful heartbeat
as I laid in stasis and hoped -
for a passing; of time, of fingers, of life.
I cannot sleep with ticking in my ear anymore
I don't think of time running out, but of paralysis.
I think of lapses of concentration,
of tongues,
of temperaments.
I think of those slow burning moments
that stretched out longer than I wanted
and lasted longer still. I think of the tears.
I am not enchanted.
The days pass
but they are not days at all
and I am not awake.
I am pacified by the numbness
of lobe or cortex that controls memory,
a self imposed strike out against you,
a strike my hand should have made.
Regret is buried
six feet beneath my fingernails.
Every time I tell someone I love them
I hear my soprano voice stuttering,
breaking.
I recall luring you to sleep with those words,
over and over, and when it was safe
I would run down the spiral staircase in the tower.
I admit I sipped from china cups
and daintily impersonated an adult.
I thought I could handle love, loving.
The rag-dolls watched, wide eyed and horrified,
as my bravado fell flat. As I fell flat.
As we fell, and I flatly refused.
As I clenched my jaw, the same jaw I will always bear.
As I crushed my eyes shut,
the same eyes that will always burn with shame.
As I dug my nails through the sheets.
The nails are gone, I bit them til they bled.
I suspect the sheets are gone too,
a destroyed relic of a squirming, weeping, spurting love-
-what I thought was love then- but even so,
I was never enchanted.
The dreams come
but they are not dreams at all
and I am not asleep.
Your hand sliding up my thigh
and your groan slicks itself onto my neck,
embeds itself into my skin.
I wear the remnants
of your ecstasy in my flesh still.
It crawls when any other nears it.
It came to be that your bed-side clock
replaced my fearful heartbeat
as I laid in stasis and hoped -
for a passing; of time, of fingers, of life.
I cannot sleep with ticking in my ear anymore
I don't think of time running out, but of paralysis.
I think of lapses of concentration,
of tongues,
of temperaments.
I think of those slow burning moments
that stretched out longer than I wanted
and lasted longer still. I think of the tears.
I am not enchanted.
The days pass
but they are not days at all
and I am not awake.
I am pacified by the numbness
of lobe or cortex that controls memory,
a self imposed strike out against you,
a strike my hand should have made.
Regret is buried
six feet beneath my fingernails.
Every time I tell someone I love them
I hear my soprano voice stuttering,
breaking.
I recall luring you to sleep with those words,
over and over, and when it was safe
I would run down the spiral staircase in the tower.
I admit I sipped from china cups
and daintily impersonated an adult.
I thought I could handle love, loving.
The rag-dolls watched, wide eyed and horrified,
as my bravado fell flat. As I fell flat.
As we fell, and I flatly refused.
As I clenched my jaw, the same jaw I will always bear.
As I crushed my eyes shut,
the same eyes that will always burn with shame.
As I dug my nails through the sheets.
The nails are gone, I bit them til they bled.
I suspect the sheets are gone too,
a destroyed relic of a squirming, weeping, spurting love-
-what I thought was love then- but even so,
I was never enchanted.
