Shame on Me

A poem

Photo by Yann Le Comte on Unsplash

Cynical pleasures and
the embraced illusions of martyrdom.
We’re after something that
simply doesn’t exist.
I’m welcoming the inconvenience of questions:

who do we do it for?
Bag of nutmeg on the floor —
blocking out all expression,
no teeth, just mysterious eyes
departing —

but not ready to depart.
Inhales are like sheathing
a frosted sword.
Emptiness is dangerous
but it’s also our bedrock.

Wants are warped by unspecified voices.
Rationality ravishes
what could be reality.
Devious attachments
and discontent commitments.

I know how I should,
but know not how I might.
To take on the status of poet,
I need only fool you once.

The idiocy of survival —
of collective-destructive constraints.
The incommunicability of me.
The impositions
informed by fear.