"Those were hard things for me to come by, and I offer them to you for what they may be worth." - Toby Wolff



Friday, November 14, 2014

Tight at the Throat



To hold that boulder between your teeth
to talk around it...work, jog
kiss with it between your lips
the ache growing
porcelain chipping away
silence chiseling into an insurmountable resolve.

What physical weight could you hold this long?
Why do you feel your heart stronger than your exoskeleton?

And when you finally released that mountain
let it flow downhill
picking up the steam you've imagined will render us
cartoon flat
bloodless...
it wasn't a boulder at all
that postured at the foot of us.
It was just a truth rising up like bile,
like childbirth
it could not be held back
else the child stillborn
and the mother dead also.

It ached for breath and faith
so that when it rolled to the base of us expelled
we would overshadow it.
"it"
this thing you feared say for so long
while building its walls and pouring its foundations,
hunkering down inside that fort
claiming safety.

It wasn't safe.
It was just self preservation
eating you alive