Off

by Cam M. Roberts

I spoke you the idiomatic bullshit,
and you wrote it down to a poem.
My vernacular is about how I
hear your face through my eyes.
Can I still speak some dialectic
of idiocy, without you breathing
down my neck, braying like a
jackass, or barking like a bitch?
It all brings you to me, and this
loud peace where I sit.
I changed everything to tolerate myself
when you’re with me, can you
hold on to the times when I don’t remember
the falling pit of my gut? When I’ve
gone too far to try to forget you –

This thought brought out a string of pain
and a dull blade of the tongue
weathered by all the blood,
by being locked out and left
to exposure, those elements of
disclosure that are your heart’s
heavy burden, a place
I’ve tried to learn to love
as a minorly flawed paradise
which would only highlight
Your myriads upon galleons of virtues –
By now, I’ve like whetstone been worn
Worthless as a fucking rag,
Slices of my soul, your ghosts
grinding all the vapid words I could never
put into wrote or much less
compose from a spoken
language where this mouth opens
and the silence is far from relief –

If I can’t help you save yourself
From destroying me,
Then I’ll lock you out forever –
Even as your screams sharpen:
Deafening.

 

© CMR, 2012