DECA(Y)DENCE

My throat is a raw festering wound.

It stinks of betrayal and my voice has retired

to an unknown cavern in my body.

It doesn’t answer when I knock.

I grow ripe with resentment.

I understand now, how that grapefruit

I left on the patio must have felt.

I let it soften under the sun for a week.

I watched in fascination as flesh peeled from meat,

and its rot perfumed the air, it hewed to my lungs.

I ignored its silent pleas,

Its voiceless cry, for something,

for anything.

I offered only my impassive stare,

leering at all hours of the day.

I threw it away.