I tried to write a poem
That didn’t speak of pain
Or passion unbridled
Or the rawness of desire
To my surprise
It felt like lies
Like dry
Like empty words
Like perversion
Of the dullest kind

Kisses with no tongue
Scissors that would not cut
A razor that only pinkens the skin
tingling, numbing. Laughable.
Pretending to slice
Pretending to mark
in weak silly lines
across my heaving, empty chest.
a joke making fun of itself,
a loose leaf of innocent paper,
defaced and deflowered,
defiled by my muck and waste of ink.

“I tried to be a poem”
She said;
Blushing of embarrassment
Staring at the floor…
“But you gave me nothing
To work with
Gave me nothing
to feel with
Gave me nothing
to say”

And she despised me
For her premature birth
For the unlikely
unwilling
unimportant
insignificant
nonreminiscent
existence that I had
forced her into–
words on paper
nothing more, nothing more.
twisting and pulling her out of me
with the forceps of mockery
She wept empty tears.
I laughed empty jeers.

A premature ejaculation of the soul
“You always climax too soon,” she said
and shook her head.
“Why can’t you see? Some of us
are trying
to be poetry.”

I tried to write a poem
That didn’t speak of pain
Or passion unbridled
Or the rawness of desire
But nothing came,
nothing came.

Nothing worth anything,
at least.