Words crawl down your back
like sweat maggots, bulbous
in maternal frettings and those chaise lounges
built just for you, of

spider-scratch notes and
those monotone, illustrious blabbermouth
nods arisen from purgatory gods
with PhDs. They're esteem conjures
phantasmagorical paths down
your mind's scar tissue, with they
as trembling-tearing-trekkers
armed with medical tomes.
You just whisper, we'll see.

In your mind I must be
an alpine sylph who lives in corridor echoes
and between pages of your old school books.

When we meet I whisper
of grades and talk and tennis games.
You hand me a razor blade, a tissue.