Cingulomania

Cingulomania

*the desire to hold someone in one’s arms; to surround

oneself in madness*

Hot mixture burning in the sternum,

whiskey stuck in the throat. Milky white

bacon grease settling under the skin

climbing the vertebrae, the vultures circling,

heavily infesting its way to the brain

rooted in fingertips and toes tingling in tiny riots

craving refuge from fires in the nerves that

burn through veins like thread breaking the windows

of personality picking apart the conscious

to force reactions driven by aggression

battling those ego boosts and evening blues,

that natural urge to get small in the cold,

to crumple like tinfoil and hide in an open field

wind tearing the skin as if toying with prey,

bones moving, clinking, colliding like

New England winter wood frosted with

the flames of voices spoken in distant villages,

voices voicing echoes of what is, what will be,

and then what was.

I wish I could live in the community

of an orange tree. These mixtures and

cages and urges just feel too real to me.

To live among the insects and outcomes

of nature’s nobility.

To hold a hand gently, fingers rested

on piano keys, palms tasting the trust

of air between.

To experience the art of missing out;

be somewhere else, anywhere where

the mind isn’t right now.

To hold your finger like the trigger

of a gun, muscles tensing, failing to see

which way it aims.

Melting, clinging, begging, falling

snow seeking refuge from the sun under

blue skies and bright eyes bursting

asunder blinded by broken glass.

The skull filling with impish chittering,

pipes bursting inside flooding the mind

with withering wildflowers waiting

to bloom in infertile soil. You

distract yourself with deaths

of authors and flocks of crows above. You

commit to constant criminal

thoughts haunted by a single shove. You

act infatuated and apricate in the

apathy of everything that makes it tough. You

fuck to forget the fond feeling

of freezing within the folds of love. You

hide in the hallways of a haunted

mind splattered in mauve. You

lie awake at night alive with the

electric lull and hum, drunk on lust. You

try talking with every set of

teeth to test the limits of trust. I

wish I could try.

I wish I could try.

I think I could live in the community

of an orange tree. I could hide up there

in a place where no one can find me. To hold

you gently, wrapped in the warmth of what could be. I

wonder,

to thrive within a balance that is so alive, yet dark and cold.

To thrive within balance,

I wonder