Wired

Suffocating myself with the wire between us,

pulling it taut when I wish it would loosen

making our knots worse when trying to untangle them,

and free all of us held captive in its arms.

-

Making our knots worse when trying to untangle them,

and tethering my feet together.

Their links are locked and brutal,

bloodthirsty metal

teasing its way into the bloodstream.

-

A held out hand promised a future

in a burning world,

and I refused its sanctuary.

The victory would be pyrrhic

and I couldn’t afford to lose

any other fragment of that mirror’s spiteful image.

Vitriolic for the fun of it,

refusing shade in sunlight.

-

I ran for miles while

you touched our love with gloves on.

-

With a plastic bag opened, you gripped it

and with a grimace, tried to forget its imprint,

its engravings.

-

Now a shadow occupies the space

which my hand once owned. The strings,

once tied, were severed,

but I have tried to replace them

with a thousand hobbies and hatreds

instead. I’m starting to think

that it’s all in my head.