By Ali
Date: 2007 Jun 12
Comment on this Work
[[2007.06.12.09.01.3597]]

you have ransacked my heart

There was so much
and then so little—but
how familiar it seems,
in the little heaves of silence,
old mistakes limping by, outrun
by each quick disaster:
how could you not know?
It seems too easy to pretend.

The phone swallowed my hand:
the circle of a snake, kneeling
in a wayward Eden—
I will dial the numbers, but to what end?
You no longer wear my face,
and I seem to only brandish yours
in response to this:
again,
you have ransacked my heart.

Which part forgets, and which
strike of innocence is remembered?
An untrained soldier once, could I now be
a casualty uncounted?  The truth
seems more possible than all this is worth,
and I am only angry outside of your eyes.

There was so much
and then so little—
but unregretting, unrelenting, unacknowledging
you consume (and then spit out)
every breaking point
of my resistance—
I would hate you,
but deeper than this surface rage,
I know,
I know I can’t.