keeping tempo

Fight the light, the spark you spit on

it sputters and dies, hissing

you’re missing the point

that the pain is as real as you make it

and you make it painful because

peace is too mundane, the thrill

is a pull you pour into, pour your bones

and the clones of your clones into,

ghost images of your past self

into this thing called thrill like the

shriek, the drill, the dentist’ warm

rubber gloves grinding out the cavity.

You begin to think you make sense

but the words are only there to keep tempo.

You sense, though, a pattern, a cause

and you pause to sift through

but you move on cuz you know the words

aren’t meant for you.

Pick the pictures off the vanity,

pluck the faces from the page like plums

sticky and sweet and rotten.

The dentist Tsk Tsks and you shrug.

You love these people,

and they fester against your gums

and they fester in your lungs

because you breathe them in and out

dead skin cells, dead thoughts,

carbon monoxide and recycled stories.

Pain pinches and you remember.

You remember why things have worth.

by E.R. Womelsduff