Trickle,
words like honey sticking
to the creases in your spine
like mine,
well used but still confused
with entertainment;
pregnant silences miscarry
in the interlude.

The feel of tongue and teeth and lips,
an amorous sensation
suffering from
cessation in this drought
of mental fluency,
drip-drag-dry me out,
concurrent shirking of the senses
rendering them useless.

Make five minutes go by faster,
rat-a-tat-a-tick-tock hands
caressing at my back
but don't look back
or
you'll be gone—
oh, God, I'm paranoid,
sure that you were just a void
between the sheets where someone used to be
or maybe it was me
alone,
but I don't know.

Click-tick-tick-tick,
ratchet 'round the faceless face
of prophecy
and mockery stealing emotions,
but everything must fall
between the lines of time
and Caroline, I miss you
every day,
just like that time we prayed beneath a willow
before religion lost its way
inside a kiss.

They'd never let us live it down,
those hypocrites with small town values
drinking broken marriages into
startled silence
that never really realized it was dead
inside our heads,
us children sneaking out
to taste crinkled crackle candy
waiting for us
like lovers.

So it's all this lack of words
stirring up the memories
I'd locked inside a sepulcher
beside the sea,
like in that poem about a raven
or maybe a dead girl;
I don't recall,
but you were all I had
to lose.

I can't refuse.