Other Sides

The other side to all of this is an empty sidewalk. Concrete as ivory as intention without a martyr. I have a million pens, but I can only write with one. The pages labor. Digging their mines deep to find the ores embedded. But invariably, those tunnels collapse.

There is poetry in alcohol. A soft lullaby for an restless tide. A refill for all the ink I've spilled.

When they look. When they stare with callous eyes and pretend to read. As though the living can speak to the dead.

Sometimes, perhaps, if we let them.

But not this time.

In these macabre zoos of stalled inflection. Just animals with words at their beckon.

Growling in jungles so deep they'll never be heard.

The other side to everything is knowing. Who you are to them.

You think you know yourself until you see how they reflect.

Sharp siren grinning loud. Coarse mirror follows me to my shadows.

Until I want only to be blind. And deaf.

Or to show them how wrong they are.

Treat me as a corpse and I will always respond in kind.

There goes my other side again.

The world a spider web. So many ways to be the victim. Angles everywhere offering what could never be had.

Numb.

I like this venom.

Paralyzed. I've been the predator. I'd rather be the prey.

I'd rather lose like this. Than to win the other way.