…maybe I was just trying to
figure you out and ravage
your body the way
time has ravaged it…

…or maybe I was just attempting to
make conversation with your lips and
persuade you to reopen
old festering wounds and share your
closed heart with an open heart surgeon
who would rather be operating on your brain,
because that’s where the real skill lies…

…or maybe I was alone
without a candle in the dark and
didn’t have the wherewithal to
whistle while I cursed the wick and
forgot to celebrate the flint
as I watched my lady’s flinty heart
dimming in that fingernail in the sky moon…

…or maybe I was excelling as an underachiever
or achieving delusions of conspicuous splendor…

…or maybe I was neither in love nor in lust;
I was just alone and nonplused and
unwilling to put up much of a fuss
when you opened your lovin’ vein
with that blunt instrument
called your brain and let it spill out
all over my golden-black flame of hair and
drip beneath my astigmatic stare…

…or maybe my mouth ejaculated
when my tongue should have been
on a leash and maybe I unleashed my id
when my superego should have been
refereeing and when my ego was taking
a meeting with my looking-glass self…

…or maybe the blame lyes
with the lie of a shy guy
treading enigmatically in front of
the sphinx and musing in front of
his muses as Medusa washes
the original serpent of sin
from her reptile coif
with an anti venom
made from the blood of Christ and
displays her scarred neck
for Perseus and celebrates her disembodiment
from a netherworld that eschews
phantasmagoria and prevents her
from throwing stones at glass ceilings…