Poem: Strip You Down

I'd like to steer you into a dark corner
Leaving you without audience, and thus, power
Would I see something human?
A quivering lip or twitch in the eye to say "there's a chance"

I’d like to strip you down
To a you without guise
Fingers tracing every whispered word that drips down your chin
Like the affections of a quarter hour in a bar's bathroom stall

I'd like to see right through you
To know how your inescapable eyes
Translate life into a setting and story,
Into art, as only you could do

I'd like to believe that I don't
Ta ta type in vain
That these fingers don’t blister while my thoughts
Saturate with images of you

I'd like to think
That I've not gone through all I have
Past people and porridge and cells
Only to get distracted by someone
Who seems to trap me with three unfinished walls
And words so artfully entwined with sadism and insincerity

But I can't



Daniel R.