Epiplexis

And of all roots –

I’ve eschewed yours,
gnawing on everything else to sharpen
teeth that never acquired the courage
to bite into your flesh;

I do not know how to love you.

My mother taught me that silence is hatred,
so I gathered all the poems that quake in
my lungs and screamed them into
your winds to no avail –

what are whispers to a tornado?

I’ve grinded my teeth into stardust
hoping to choke on the supernovae
that will follow – what good is a mouth
that’s an inhospitable galaxy refusing to
churn the right words to house you?

Am I to cannibalize myself, in the heat of
this longing? The heart yearns first, and
beats second – why else would my
heartbeat be three-syllables long?

I offer you my palms to rest,
and you sever them, splitting
my radius and ulna to fashion
into pestles, my heart a mortar,
you crush me till I’m malleable,
but what for? Was I not the sea
begging to be cupped in your palms?

I do not know moderation –

ask me to love, and I’ll split myself
at the seam till all the light inside
of me leaks into one last sunset,

ask me to write you a poem, and
I’ll pen you a compendium of
books of poetry, waiting for
your annotations.

What’s the cost of being?
I ask because it’s much too taxing,
I rather be still, motionless,
occupied with basic needs,
than to have one more thought
comparing your fingers to daggers
and my body its sheath.

And still,

I am present,
an absent-minded pilot in
controlled descent;

the sky reminded me too much of you.

Is that alta on your hands.
or my blood, I cannot tell.
With morning dew enroute,
do not rush to rinse it off,
I can use the visual reminder
that you bore witness to all the
parts of me that were meant
to stay in the dark.

Why was I not spared of meeting you?