I am only ever me
by accident
and you kept repeating that you were sorry
as if it was the chorus of a song
in the quiet lull of my favourite catacombs,
almost transparent blue and so quiet I can
sometimes cut through the stillness with
the pointed scalpel of imagination
I slump into the looking glass and ponder
if the dark wells of my eyes are mine or not
I know time is short and I must come and go
before dawn breaks the somber charm of gloom
and I have to slip back into the skin so worn out
the supple truth of me threatens to slip through the cracks,
further
eyes so dark and sharply drawn
they have a sinister semblance
are you gentle, or are you foul?
Hands that linger on the scars of my knees and rise
to wipe ferociously across a quivering front
impatient and nagging until the skin rips off
and deftly slides to the floor along with the gaze
now only pitch-black and so unadorned
eyes so much like uncurtained windows
agape open bare and made passable by the boldness of me
with no otherness to fool or awe
through,
I know they hunt my silence like a peril
