Pull-poem

Pull

North and South live up to their titles
they freeze and burn when I deviate from
the core of my rational, average centre—
my bridge above the pool of bubbling anger,
below a sky of blinding apathy

Me and You lived up to our titles
making an “us” from two skeptical
“I’s”

We stood on this bridge,
the experiment of stability
standing on feet that once ran but could
halt
with a hint of affection from
you

Time’s an enemy I can’t ignore
wearing on my balance—
raining on my vision
so I can’t tell the future from the
maelstrom below

Time won’t let me die,
live,
or breathe in this Wonderland
where you wrote me into existence
in this tragedy with no
ending

Time won’t intervene
while my heart pounds and slows,
stealing blood from my imagination
weighing my feet to concrete below

North pulls me to frigid heavens,
South to smouldering saunas
where sins burn free from the flesh that wanted
gravity to pull you through me
until nothing’s left
but air’s memory that love once was
here

I can’t feel my feet
my heart won’t beat
the storm’s calming to a stubborn shower
washing away the heat from below
washing away impending frostbite
Then Time wakes me from my trance

Lust and Love live up to their titles
you touch my hand, usurping my chemistry—
sensation lying to my sensibility

And I could touch your face tonight,
if I only knew how to break Time’s sentence
if I only knew how I could let myself free
from the shackles of a nightmare
that never let me walk beside you
but threw me to the mercy of the ravaging magnetism
of ruthless, warring
poles.