Behind The Words Upon The Screen

The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.

I watch as she writes words
that slice deeper
than razors I used to slide
upon my flesh
opened up a litany of screams from onlookers
as if to bleed your soul onto canvass
is to be feared

it’s just hurt and once it leaves
all that’s left is a hole
where the pain was

sometimes you cut so deep
to reveal the masterpiece
and thick mosaic of scars
you go to realms most would never dare
I imagine that you’d let me kiss your puckered fields of rippled flesh

gently

I’d drink coffee blacker than the memories
I use as ink to scream out my pain

listen to your stories in rapt attention
because there’s a mirror in your eyes
that shows an infinite love
an infinite sadness
and I am mesmerised by the fact
it has a texture I can feel with a sixth sense

nothing you say will change the world
change the universe
still I’d listen as if it were
the wisdom of queens
delivered to a pauper
who only understands the quality
of his own bare patch
of dirt

I’d be left there staring at
my own nothing
as you
blaze a trail
leaving
scrabbling dust in the cold air
and my longing in your wake