Author Information
"Circulation"
by Jeph Johnson
Doom concentrates on my emotions
as my intellect languishes in confusion.
The sole refuge for my sanity
was encompassed in your smile.
It shines now, too infrequently,
only from my mantle,
and when I dig past my library card.
Though cliche, it warmed my heart.
Now I cannot begin to find
a reason for contentment
...let alone fathom achieving it!
There seems more to heartbreak than pain.
Loss prevails in the furnace of my soul.
Now only cold, grey soot
swirls around when even
half-a-smile from another woman
kicks up dust.
There is no more longing
...only driven lust.
There is no more patience
...only driven lust.
There is no more kindness
...only driven lust.
Only I am not driving!
Lust is like a stagecoach
recently detached.
As the team peacefully grazes
in a lush meadow,
I go crashing perilously
down a steep, dirty ravine.
My plummet,
though steady and committed,
is oddly slow-motion.
I am able to vividly note my descent,
athough helpless to decipher any signification.
I notice other faces
more beautiful.
I view other bodies finer.
I imagine other souls more pure.
But I have no connection with them.
They blur past me and I cannot even touch:
Not the saintly,
dark-eyed and fair-skinned
Romanian virgin with the scarf on her head or
the reprobate,
brown-eyed and tanned
exotic dancer
with barely a scarf to cover her whole form.
I CANNOT EVEN TOUCH!;
neither hand nor heart function.
My circulation is numbed;
my sense of touch deemed irrelevant.
If I could feel well enough to grasp it,
I'd plunge some sort of dagger through all of this,
for I have confidence no blood would flow!
In my vain attempt to regain my senses,
I ponder deviance,
extremity and perversion
for NO BLOOD would flow!
My lungs used to inhale
deeply your breath,
now I ask,
"What is air?"
But I care not the answer.
Fairness is destroyed,
Karma drivel,
and Heaven,
a concept my thoughts formerly embraced
when you looked in my eyes.
Heaven without beauty-
Worth without purpose-
And myself without you...
no longer exist.
...regardless of truth.
