loss of blood

she asked me once

and this is true

-do you ever get tired of the smell

that smell of blood all the time-

i was confused

and did not know what to say

this not the thing i thought

would come (could come?) from pretty lips

still sticky with whatever flavored shine

she had spread upon them earlier

like the old men in leather

used to spread lime

to stick the pretty birds to ground

and capture for their own

and so to buy time

and to perhaps unstick myself

from the way the corner of her mouth

turned inward

like a secret trail to some wonderland..

i asked her what she meant

and i think she was waiting for it

that she was used to pulling others

onto her headlong train of thought

because she didn't hesitate 

not even to poke her light pink tongue

and run it over her lips that i still had

half of me stuck on

-all this leaking around us

the important things that keep us from death

in life and living

the blood. Dont you get weary of it?-

this time i was ready

and keeping my eyes firmly on that

amber curl that slid smoothly down

the side of her face 

and pushed my tongue into some sort of action

while my mind flailed for something

clever to say

or deep

perhaps if i said something solemn

catching just the right shadows on my face

she'd lean in 

and that sleek curl would spin

across my face and coil tighter

pulling those lips closer until...

but she was waiting for me to speak

so i said that maybe death was part of life

that finding about the one 

teaches truth on the other

hoping that was enough

and she sighed

pushing with her little breath

herself away from me

and said with a quiet voice

that cut the air to tatters between us

simply by being soft 

and expecting air to reform itself around her

-i thought you were one of us

but you are, just another blind one.

watching the sunset

and thinking of nothing but colours.-

and with that she went to turn

but paralyzed

i managed to turn the seizure

in my red-striped heart

into words that stumbled about

coming out something between why and no

so she paused a second

before turning and saying

-this is what a poet is

one that sees the broken veins

in short conversations as much as in 

wandering leaves with spots of brown

that notes the spill of life

along the tattered sidewalks

and the spaces between hands

and smells the blood of lost days and dreams

in the midst of sugar fumes

and lonely paper bags

that is what a poet is

and somedays. we grow so tired 

of the smell of blood.-

she went to turn

and i was left a statue 

caught in the light of something

on a far horizon as it faded away

and all that i could notice

was a metal taste in my mouth

and the smell of something sticky sweet

clinging to my nostrils 

and the cuffs of my sleeves.