Andrew King - Words

an action is nothing, but nothing else is. a groove comes between a solid and a fluid, or two solids. this is not enough to live by, but people start somewhere.

i started by breathing deeply six times. now everybody stares, but no others but the dullest dullards meet my eye. it suits me, because secretly, i've never wanted to fit in. no, i'm desperate to.

a dry month
lucky number seven left me
too sticky
stuck
sunk-down to stop.

to stop the up-up-up-down
the one-two-three-sob
the arigato splash, chan.
thanks for nothing is what it was, damn you,
a moment removed
from its darker selves.

annex me
with needles darting through skin
with deep deep breathing
to push away from a need
we were courting.

do you ever see people,
self-relegated to secondary life,
gods in silence?
those who control
and feign ignorance,
lead as though chasing?

i saw one, effaced, engrossed.
a beard before a beautiful portrait,
and every perfect muscle
shown through a wardrobe of endearing
false modesty.

he was an accessory to the
american set.
he made me a fag
and walked away.
for once i felt no shame.

she rolled on top of me, you know. she didn't want to, i mean, she did... but she knew. she was a monolith of denial; she only moved quickly to leave.

we shouldn't fuck. i mean, fuck, as in an action against somebody. it's not always the same as making love without love. it can be a weapon, the body. it wrecks more delicate parts.

she illustrates her tin for me
and every tired irony comes back above
to make skin stale, to make me wallow still.

she makes my life soliloquy.

"how could i push myself? how could i show myself to be so irrational, to be so fucking faulted?"

even as these thoughts came i shivered with how lurid, senseless, stupid they were. was this all pent up? i used to scream at everything. i was so ashamed of myself. i was so juvenile, such a joke, the antithesis of every mantra that never passed my lips.

i didn't care that i had shown himself. rather, i rolled back inside myself in disgust and humiliation at how commonplace my feelings were, how livid and partial.

instead of masturbating now, i write. writing, of course, draws more sweat from the hands, and is easily more shameful. shame, though, is tired. shame is a cliche.

it is something to say that i consider us to be equally large, when of course you are much, much smaller. why should such trivialities matter? why am i myself so small next to you, and why do we leave our shadows and things in piles, so genuflect and weak?

i presented to you a fantasy --
a remedy for the heat.
bent at the waist, naked, supplicating,
your thoughts agreed.
but this pornography is not the point.

with mouthfuls of ice, i cure.
your mind diverges, melts, drips.
your bones gasp, your vision twists.
you yearn for fire to strengthen cold.
you faint,
but this pornography is not the point.

when my mind is counterfeit,
when lewd words push you far,
believe that closeness is real,
that i foresee you.
believe that heights remain
for you to pull me through,
that this pornography is not the point.

i'm sorry that i am
feeling so
unsentimental
unromantic
uninspired.

but
i've been in mothballs
i've been in a grey block
at the end
of a tube
so you can hardly blame me.

but
things are bursting
a fire is pushing steam
through concrete
seconds grow pendulous

and
they drop, drop, drop.

and
being at fault for this steam
i feel as though it is my duty to
inform you
that things frozen
may soon scald

so
put your dukes up
with oven mitts and abandon

and
peer warily
through the lashes
of one eye

and
when sobs rack your cage
to exhaustion
you will feel
inspired
romantic
sentimental

but
these things take time

Ignore this. I'm just trying to test the alignment of two columns. It still doesn't look quite right, but then, I'm using an ancient browser.