Don’t pretend I’m not paying attention

To every nuance of your visage

Every micro-movement or furtive glance,

Lustful yearnings for validation.

I understand all too well,

Your strained exaggeration

Your compulsion to please.

Please, take off your make-up.

Relax that brow and pose.

Reclaim connection to your body,

Your authenticity, recompose.

No gesture but that which’s called,

No expression but your core.

And mastering presence with completeness,

Open heart’s rusty door.

For, I hear every intrigue,

every subterranean discomfort you deplore.

And can feel your dishonesty spewing forth

in every sip of sweat from your pores.

How I long to lap up your frailty!

and replace it with oak pith.

Caress my finger along your vulnerability,

Soothing eternal throbbings of wound’s myth.

So lick me, with your bandas’ fire,

Seduce me with fierce eyes,

Surrender your self to my heaving chest,

And wrap me in the innocence of your thighs.

For you know far better

than to pretend and feign and guile.

I can but only pray and attend

that you untwist that sickly smile.