The Smoke

 

The Smoke

 

What gives me pause

is the fact that

you’ve read every clause,

gone over all the lines

and no doubt taken your time

and everything is still fine.

 

Your advances

so abrasive

and wholly invasive

have rendered my evasive efforts

to little more than hapless ambition.

You pursue with conviction

as if your assertiveness

is not at all the contradiction

to every warning one should heed.

 

Our needs

could not be more

different in speed

with even a year’s head start

and the truly confusing part

is this doesn’t even startle you.

 

This is quite possibly

the ever present part of you

and yet I still can’t reconcile

with the wiles of a mystery

that apparently need not be solved.

 

We revolve around the very

discomfort we willingly impart

to each other’s heart

and the end is often sacrificed

for the sake of the recurrent start:

 

There is a fire

and the air is too hot

but this is where you stake your plot.

 

I am on fire

yet through the smoke

you wrench and vice me

but you’re the one who chokes.

 

I am the fire.

Scorched earth and fresh embers.

You hold on tight

and ignore your blisters.

 

Perhaps the perception of misery

is the unsolvable mystery

that expectation falls victim to

even when all is seen vividly.

 

Our nature cannot conceivably coincide

with any concept of tame.

Even before you knew my name,

you found yourself

drawn to this flame

with no wariness to accompany the wonder.

 

Any sensible means

to what is clearly seen are wrought

beneath a bliss you’ve relentlessly fought

to fashion as you hoped it to be

and to this day,

one constant question.

 

The thought like ash still smoldering:

 

Why choose to be the moth

that hovers so low over me?

 

Why die in love?

 

With me?

 

Devin Joseph Metz

5.12.21

Hindsight

 Hindsight

Eyes want to see

but they cannot be crystal clear;

not without the strain and fear

of what will be

should I remain here.

Tears toy with my vision

then I curse in derision

for having provided them the chance;

blinking before I can glance

and thinking through an expanse

of solutions that might never

rinse them clean and make it better.

What eyes can manage to see

are letters instead of words;

no matter what I’ve heard

or had repeated to me.

Eyes want to view

yet I am somewhat subdued

by what appears in front of me.

No matter where I turn,

no matter how much it burns

and my stomach churns

at the thought of ever looking away.

There’s so much that I can say

regarding the reckless state of disquiet

of images tossed about in riot

moments after I close my eyelids.

I did my sight no solid

and now wish my eyes slid

swift and dry 

across the pavement.

What eyes can commit to view

are commonplace. Nothing new.

Many facts among the few

that I’ve convinced myself aren’t true.

Eyes want to feel

what I never sought to repeal

for the sake of making real

that which I endeavored to conceal

as if sight is all that matters.

That seldom forgotten truth

carries the uncomfortable texture

of a lather 

that never rinses clean

while never managing to dry

and I‘ve no business asking why.

Through terse denial,

I force a try then another

yet it hovers still

and I vacillate

between distress and thrill

at these thick, slick layers

that are so hard to peel.

What eyes can hope to feel

aside from this cursed, tactile calamity

are what men were taught never to reveal

lest weakness trickle into their vanity.

Eyes want to know

but I can’t say that I will grow

given the nature of acquisition

or my ambition toward it.

Hard hitting in my strive

to thrive from what I hope to gain

as if the stain will…

...remove itself in that moment.

Look and see that eyes

don’t reach out for atonement

or even to learn from the moment.

Just the brief existence therein.

Eyes obtain this knowledge

and smear it like salve across skin

that had no hint of irritation.

Eyes call it preparation

like the garnered foreknowledge

will somehow prevent impending humiliation.

What eyes will come to know

is when there’s nowhere else to go

and the lie called pride denies all help,

you’ll find it hard to look at yourself.

Devin Joseph Metz

5.7.21