P.D.A.s (public displays of affection)

I was wary of posting this. The risk with poetry is that it can cut close to the bone sometimes. I wrote this poem a few years ago, so I think there's enough distance between the writing and publishing for me to discard the personal angst and approach the poem aesthetically now.

~

You see it coming like a blossoming rose
Seeping sweet scent, baiting your nose,
as if life wasn't already short enough.

swirling down
like a cataclysmic thundercloud
the gift from heaven.

Love!
Watch it, glue your eyes
taking your friends, your good friends, to giddy heights
gasping with joy, delight in the other, in each other.

But don't watch, it is too bright
for those who have been in darkness for too long.

And as the honey moves down their arcèd throats
radiant peace envelopes their faces
tears flood my heart

Stop!
Please for once look
beyond your Christmas dinner
and see me starving, drooling on the side,
my skin wrapped ribs wracked with pain.

Through the tears, I bless
and curse
And bless with a toothless smile.

For it is the most beautiful thing to ever behold;
an awakened dream for the lucky
a drugged taunt for the damned.

Yes
take what is rightfully yours
Your love is to be experienced, drunk, osmocised, complete.

But not here
I just can't take it.

~