pacing round my apartment
because i could not look you in the eye.
pacing round my apartment
because i am too god-damned shy
to say
hello.
o hell hello
i can look at your heels
your knuckles
your neck
your lips,
but your eyes?
those golden pearls of motion
waterfalls and whirlpools
dripping all over the room until they flood the space beneath my eyelids
(i dart away)
(i dart back)
(pacing pacing pacing)
and my vocal chords grow twisting tendrils of tentacles,
suffocating the polite conversation out of my diaphragm and into my eyelashes
(eye flutter, not knowing what to say)
the fear has taken my body, my nerves,
captive-
and it binds me back until
you think of me as stranger again.
a moment, our moment,
dead and gone.
finally, i’ve stopped pacing.
i can sit still,
breathe,
and bury another hopeful
underneath my feet.
