The echoes we can't admit

Monday I woke

out of a nightmare where
numb knees lock in impotent silence

I had a silent scream locked in my throat

killed by the sudden revelation that you were
absolutely never coming back

Etched tattoos on me

forever -- even now,
twice a half a decade
since you left, I still feel
hot prickly saliva afterglows from your loose tight lips
even as I forget what you look like

Eggs cooked on a street they call High, this

forgotten until I force
to remember the
tiny concrete crawlspace we lost
our virginities together in a splash

Deepening ripples spreading across the surface of our lives

and you refusing to admit the ripples underwater

You still anger me

though hardly at all anymore, only when I remember
hot purple sunglasses forever
egging me on
goading me to commit sins

Ripping of clothes, violation of flesh

and each time, sweat drying on each other, you'd
say, "You should probably go. You can't stay."

See, in the real

world of our perpetual pond, the ripples spread forever
and touch us with
senseless sense of
geography or time or space

Each memory in reality lurking under the surface

never completely leaving us

And this is what you never understood, what you'll

never understand -- that the
death of sex
teems with the maggots of
hurt longing love anger jealousy melancholy
eagerly awaiting the moment, years later, when the waves
spread when you're least expecting it, crippling you

Early mornings, maybe now you finally understand what

you could never admit

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Copyright 1998, Jason Pettus. All rights reserved.