too obvious, at night

Fire keeps me awake. The fire of you, your lips. Sequins jangle in the depths of your eyes, diamonds reflecting Egyptian sunlight in brilliant pearlescent sparkles. There is no poem to describe you. The way you hurt me. Burn tattoos of fire into my flesh with those lips. Just the thought of them does this to me. You represent some kind of part of me. You are a metaphor for my primal scream. I wish the night could dance as well. I wish the wind were your fingers, the stars were your smiling eyes. I wish wishes came true.

Oh, I know, people would line up to explain it to me. But it doesn't need explaining. It doesn't accept explaining. It is wherever I go. It is myself. It is why I love the violence. It is why I love the jazz of tragically almost loving you. It is why I drown myself in holy water, cursing every name of god. It is why I search for Him at night when death at last seems real. You don't know the shit I am, I walk through. But you do. That is it.

Fear keeps me awake. The fear of you, your lips. I know what you are, I know what you want to do to me. I won't let you. Touch me. I know the secret of the universe. It isn't a pure anything. Forget that. There isn't any good, there isn't any evil. There's just a mix of things, and you label them sometimes when they follow a certain pattern you think you've seen before. Oh, I know you. You're one of them. Shit.

It doesn't mean anything, being afraid of fire. It means I don't like the tightrope as much as most. It means I can't sleep when there's thunder walking. I feel you in me, wanting to get out. I want you to get out. I want you. I cry. That's what I think about, never doing anything. Looking at the rain and loving it because, hell, the rain needs a friend, nobody likes the rain. Except farmers, but nobody likes farmers either. I like to think about what we'd be doing if I weren't so afraid. I like to think about how I would love you, how I would kiss your hand, your breast, just so, and you would smile, like that, lifting up the tiny corners of your mouth, just like that. It makes me cry again. I'm a tragic hero. This is an epic tragedy, this poem. It doesn't mean anything.

6/4/97, 6/9/97, 2/18/98

Jim Genzano