I’ve been told that to write is to love words,
but am I to passionately draw them to my breast,
smothering them with kisses and lines of bad poetry?
Should I whisper sweet nothings in their ears,
and bring them flowers and candies,
and compliment them on the size of their meanings?
Should I steal them away, lying to my husband,
and book with them nights in the motel across town,
where the TV is coin operated like the bed,
where we lie together on sheets stained by past affairs?
Should I take them, in connotations and denotations,
till death do us part?
Or should I lash them, prostrate, naked
to the metal spiral head board of a bed of paper,
coax out their hidden definitions and archaic roots
to stretch myself upon, and let them take me
to a place of hard consonants,
and broken syllables,
tasting of sweat and skin
until they collapse, meaningless, and begging for more
and complaining I’ve got them
“all crazed up?”
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