You Ruined It For Me

An Exercise In Expression
( Disclaimer to the Reader:  This is not about someone you know. )
 
I read you and you swallow me whole.
 
Realizing at that moment how you’ve  
Stripped me of my finest harvest,
Gathered only moments before  
To mix in my muse blender.
 
To prepare a cobbler of shattering delights  
(With just the right amount of cinnamon);  
Golden flakey crust, and still warm.  
 
And eye-rolling sensory, using  
Exclamations and expletives  
That hadn’t been born till then.  
 
Your “catch up” ink,  
Streets and miles ahead of anything  
The others can shoe-horn  
In desperation, thinking  
 
Their artificiality will pass for blasé  
With an off-handed, off-putting  
“Aw, shucks, ‘tweren’t nuthin’.”  
And they’d be right!
 
But when you wave it off  
It’s about something,  
And suddenly I’m concerned.
 
Suddenly I’m keenly focused,
Rereading verses of yours  
I took inside of myself
 
A couple of days or a week ago,
Or just before writing this!  
 
Words I’d shrugged off begrudgingly  
As deliberately staged for special effects,  
 
To trick the reader into believing  
A scene of pathos  
To tug at the heartstrings.  
 
To have them on the edge of their seats.  
To feel special because you’ve  
Worked a miracle with a jaded audience  
 
Who really thinks they are, and are  
Brought to their knees, certain
 
Of what they believe you’re about to do  
Without ever having to spell it out,  
 
Because then you’d have to make good
On your unwritten, unspoken threat.  
 
And I simply cannot fathom or abide...  
Or even live with the remotest truth  
 
That it could happen.  
That you would let it.
  
And somehow I’m resolved that you will.  
 
Sex with the wife is no longer
The answer that will hold you.  
 
But I’ve hardly met you,  
So how do I know these things?
 
Your poetry jerks me off
Just when I think I understand  
This one particular gimmick.  
 
I strain to keep from reaching  
A breaking point.
Otherwise, I’ll hold you responsible
 
For causing any compassion  
Or empathy  
To slowly leak from my mind.  
 
And it won’t take long till I display  
The dull eyes and the pallor  
Of disconnect and indifference.  
 
I can’t tell if I’ll dread the outcome,  
Or if I’d welcome it.  
Either way,  
 
I’ll come to despise you,  
Which means  
I’ll have to feel something.  
 
 
 
Copyright©️Jade Pandora 2018.  All Rights Reserved.
NaPo/GloPoWriMo 2018