Take
Take my anger,
read like mouths moving out of place over censors,
felt like a facial expression with covered eyes.
I wring my forehead and drag my hands down my cheeks
trying to create a face that will not conceal rage in any matter of time or manipulative device, but it never holds.
You take my anger
like a seafood platter squirming
in its net for salt water and ocean floor.
I would be so pissed, if i could
but you take and you take
until i am left clenching my teeth
more like a smile than a cringe.
God, I hate you…
well i wish i did.
Take my savvy like common sense.
I can almost forget how sharp
my mind turns in cultivation
to your motives.
How attuned the accoustics of your mouth are to my ear
that I even hear “I don’t love you”
in “Good morning” and “What’s up”?
You underline each instance I am hurt
like some idiosyncrisy you own.
You will take everything
but, responsibility.
Maybe while you are sleeping
I will weave to the backs of your clothing,
that insignia
that might save my successor
some angiush.
Perhaps she will have the vigilance
to invest in armor I have been too self-conscious to wear over my chest.
Take scissors
with a rusty metal mouth
to my papier mache heart,
it’s yours.
Carve your initials into my palm
between my head and my life line
so some bushy haired woman
with blue eyelids and a heavy
Jersey accent
can tell me where I went wrong
too late for anything to be taken back, which just figures.
