9/15/2004

The way we crumple (a tragic-empathy poem)

"when you realized what you did to me, it sounded something like this:"

*ahem*


The way we crumple

I could feel you twitching;

how you were shivering

as we held onto us

after the police left us

sirens dead


I felt you shatter in fifty places

a lifetime unrestrained

the crack and howl

for the first time

screaming helpless again


You couldn’t feel anything

guilty for me

for my whispered idea

my empty threat

my box of pills


You never meant to touch me

when you touched me

and the resonance—it was me, pounding you

I made you crumple—

Oh my dear,

I saw you crumble.



And so naturally

you never

touched anyone

again

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