You asked me a question.
The words slip,
Slip,
Slipping over
Rusty eardrums,
Unused,
Unloved, left
Abandoned
In a corridor; dimly lit and
Empty.
The words like stars
Flickering
In and
Out
Of the nights sky.
Colliding like atoms
Carried by charges
Energy
Sparking.
This feeling can never,
Not ever,
Not once,
Not now-
It can never be
Screen printed,
Replicated like
A seamstress and a pattern.
Like rewritten, redrafted
Redone words,
Someone
Planted in your head,
In the palm of your hand,
Stitched into the layers
Of your
Skin.
You asked me a question.
Bursting against metal tins
Like rumbling rain and
Car engines.
The lighting
Crashing down on homeless
Dogs.
Raining cats and
Dogs.
Biting
Dogs.
Dead.
Dogs.
Do you snarl? Do you rip,
Tear,
Bark,
Growl?
Now, now, now, now, now-
Now, do you seek the warmth
Of a fist, or an
Oven, set to high a
Temperature?
Now, do you seek the warmth
Of the snow, of the freezing waters
In a pond in someone else's
Garden?
Now, do you find warmth in the
Darkness.
Trusting, hurting- the same
Precipice.
Pinnace.
Top of the tall,
Tall,
Tallest mountain.
Higher than any monster can come
Clawing,
Snatching,
Breaking.
Crushing,
Bones and hopes and dreams and worlds.
You ask me a question.
You ask
Me
A
Question.
The letters and syllables
Stretching
Over light years like
A January morning
Taking eons to get ready,
To peel the warmth off of your
Bones.
To jump back into these
Frigid waters.
To ask me a question,
how many breaths did you take,
Did you steal from the ever shrinking
Selection.
They say our minutes are numbered,
Tick
Tick
Tick
They say our seconds are counted
On the fingers of a dead man,
In the minds of horse, written
On the back of our skulls and
The only way to find out
Is to take our nails
And pull.
You asked me a question.
Did I answer?
Did I?
You asked me a question.
Was there even a flutter,
Movement,
Life
In these dead eyes?
You asked me a question.
And I'll answer when you answer
Mine.