Lemon Juice

Monday morning means I am in a lemon-sucking mood,

Twisting the corners of my mouth around bitter words

That would sound better in an accent without twang,

One that sounds pretty and posh and round on the lips.

One curled with the contempt of an upper class grin.

.

Nothing is worth a damn if hatred doesn’t stain the wood.

.

Hatred is no foul thing but a friend, an obsessive personality

Bent like an unusable board of timber promising to snap.

All these words, these thrumming thoughts of misfortune,

Only serve to feed the drum of madness pounding fists

Against the glass, trying to escape the jail of good intent.

.

The obsession is the madness, the madness is the hunger.

.

What am I but a cloud of mist caught between the desire

To lap up the sins leaching out of the unsteady pine board

And the incessant hunger to press my lips to the source,

Open my throat and my soul and my legs to the contempt

And let it fill me until nothing remains but a foreign pulse.