I understand what I am doing.
But that is a lie, for the
blank nothingness exploding
across the paper in my hands
is reflected heavily in
my own wide eyes.
The girl across the room,
she knows how it works.
Her eyes are
absorbing, breathing, expanding, contracting;
my own stay still and mesmerized by
nothing at all.
Under the table,
my legs twist and tangle themselves
around a hidden glass jar.
I feel a man’s wildest dreams
slithering and slicing their way
through the formaldehyde.
Heads will roll.
I feel those nasty, dead dreams:
I want them gone.
They whisper nothing in my ear.
Their empty voices
overcrowd the silence.
My ears are throbbing with
their noiseless screams and
impossible sobs.
I want them to stop.
I beg to make them stop–
God, why won’t they stop!
–plead to make them
STOP!!
My feet lash out and kick the
sugar thin glass to pieces.
An uproar quietly descends upon
the innocent room.
People shriek and objects tumble
all around me; the stink of
fear and adrenaline fall
into place with the rotten smell
of my obvious guilt.
I look at what I’ve done.
His dank eyes gleam with voiceless dreams.