Lies

crying didn’t help me.
it made your skin crawl and I,
well, I do think you liked it.

because you can’t cry. No,
I know that
your tears have waterlogged your weary head.

all that pressure sealed your
pulsing eyelids
and kept you silent,
but thrust my legs (left-toe to right-heel)
all the way out the front door.

I saw a
hard, cold, little rabbit.
I picked it up
and laughed right at it.
I even made myself sick
when I decided
what I was going to do then.

I picked up that ceramic piece
of what she called art.
it was fired in her summer camp kiln.
it was fired in the infernal internal fires that she caged.

…I thought it would explode,
that pink little rabbit.
I thought her unhinged desire
would burst
into a fine display of
passion-under-pressure
erupting.

no, I project.

I projected my
foaming, fizzing,
volcanic fear ready to burst into
an ugly display of
childish panic.

The ceramic piece of
art,

(that pastel bunny with the chip on its shoulder;
a deep pit that we used as a cigarette holder),

her kiln-fired, summer camp, funny
bunny
was NOT
the catharsis of my
rage parade

It did not light up the streets
when I heaved it
with all of my internal infernal hate
put behind it

Instead,
it crumbled into ten dusty pieces
that I swept up
all alone
the next morning.