Clearance

 

Clearance

 

Could I bother you for another?

Another slash?

Another gash?

A new wound to draw from?

Can you smile more this time?

It makes the tears roll slower.

While you're at it,

would it hurt for you

to maybe hunch over

and maybe come over

and save me a sore to pick over?

The cold tip of this prod

I delight in hovering over you

is not meant to goad you.

Not a means of agitation

nor of provocation

or manipulation.

I have a rather detailed

fixation

on your dire straits.

I desire those traits that trace

the delectably obscene,

deliciously unspeakable

despair that fills my dreams

and my hands to overflowing.

Without the advantage of knowing,

you've been stabbing,

punching,

throwing that dripping heart around

SO DON'T YOU DARE PUT IT AWAY NOW.

Squeeze it for me.

Wring it out.

Kiss it for me.

Wear it out.

Give it to me.

Look into my eyes when you pull it out.

Shout my name.

Chase after me

for fearful doubt

that I might change my mind.

Run behind.

Catch up.

Now fess up:

What does this bleeding thing mean

to you?

What does it really?

Do your best to convince me.

Enlighten me.

Excite me.

Entice me.

Sell me on such a possession of high importance.

Labor through your

Raggedly desperate appeal to me

until you eventually ask yourself:

Why even offer it to me?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Devin Joseph Metz

12.24.20

Great Machines

 Great Machines

My motivator is mired

in muck and moisture.

Gears once glossy have now

over persistent years

of what are presumably tears

began to rust over.

There’s a thick layer of dust over

areas that used to gleam.

It would seem

that I’m nowhere near as pristine

as I  assumed I would always be

and that in itself is a wonder

that the concept of expectancy

would ever emerge from me

to begin with.

So content with sheer performance,

I lacked the initial capacity

to calculate how preemptive faculties

would formulate into thoughts

that I would ponder

and process casually

in my solitude.

To exude anything below excellence

would see me pushed to the precipice

of obsolete obscurity.

Impurities abound 

and I swear that creaking 

sounds like one is weeping in earnest.

Feels like I’m closer to the furnace

than the desk

where I had value and purpose.

Cannot compute “For What It’s Worth”

and shake off the dirt.

Cannot convert from asking why

when i’m expected to comply.

No call back to a prior format

when the source takes so long to track.

The concept of fear

once foreign to my makeup

now takes up most of my cache

and I’m models past 

any means of maintenance and repair.

Given the diagnostics,

it appears that I’m impaired

due to a lack of care

and no true affirmation of worth.

Yes, I work

but basic function gets retired

and leaves much to be desired

other than what I once offered.

Time may alter my current state.

I’ll be retooled

or be too late to salvage.

Either way, all I can say

is that I feel obtuse.

The abuse associated

with missing a bolt,

suffering a surge or jolt,

having a screw loose

or just running out of juice

carries with it the unenviable truth

that I am so much less

than what I should be.

At least that’s how it feels

for me; 

and the unfortunate reality

is that unlike most…

…...things,

I am purely organic.

I feel panic,

I get manic

and wish I were inanimate

because I just don’t know

how much longer I can stand it.

Just turn me off. 

Please.

Devin Joseph Metz

12.20.20

(Catch) The Wall

 (Catch) The Wall

Pressed against me

and just had your way.

Couldn't really talk.

What would I have to say?

Felt like I lost my mind

but saved some thought for those days

if only to recall a time

when I used to steal away

for an imprint of your movement

turning with rhythm and force.

Bound me by my joints

and started twisting with torque.

Every sip that once burned

is met with a slow churn

of swaying hips that guide my concentration

to that of soft lips in persuasion. 

Watching you gyrate

to the vibration

as my eyes sting

from this self induced dilation

is the kind of sensation

that offers elation to the dubiousness

of "whose booty is this

when they play the next song?"

Here,

the only thing wrong

is that it never lasts as long

as my grip

and our friction would suggest.

Just moments to quickly digest

and repeatedly obsess about

while trying to keep my desire concealed

behind an outfit that revealed

more about the intention that you level

and less about my attention

in this disheveled state.

It was already pretty late

when we heard the brass band

and our interlocked hands

gave way to a release.

One last gesture of peace

before we both found a crease

between crowds on the sidewalk.

Didn't buy another drink.

Didn't find somewhere to talk.

We just let the seconds run

as long as the record spun

and then we were done.

That was fun. 

Devin Joseph Metz

12.9.2020

After

After

To feel anything.......

think of anything this late

at this hour

would have me willfully

subject myself to the unspoken

yet fully recognizable facets

of what has become our reality;

tacitly exploring the leaves and loam.

A place we'd once called home

as if it still stood to this day. 

To be still in this quiet...

in these moments and say

things aloud to myself

as if there were someone present

with me

lends me the possibility

of some rather awkward rehearsing

of a conversing

that may never take place.

I can see your face

so clearly

and you feel so warm near me

that I've convinced myself

that you most certainly hear me.

Perhaps you'll say something back

or perhaps this imagination

so vivid

would rather me be content

than immeasurably livid at the chance

that my wishful thought

was just that and nothing more. 

To get out of this bed

and walk across this cold floor

with my bare feet

rarely ever invites the possibility

that I wouldn't recall when

we would float to each other

so temperature didn't matter

and that bite in the air was formality

and we weren't swayed by the calamity

of potential illness.

We were heat on repeat

replete with enough comfort

to ward off the elements.

Evidently elegant and circumspect

lest our desire be met with consequential removal.

We sought no approval

and brokered no lies designed

to sever the ties we've bound

yet this floor is as cold as the ground now

and you aren't hovering near me.

Won't even appear to me

without the mournful mix

of memoriam and imagination.

To think of you as a mere fixation

is to mock the truth

that you were so much more

and deny the harsher notion

that the further I'm drawn to these emotions,

the further you seem to float away.

This is yet the hardest of these days. 

Devin Joseph Metz

11.9.20