END OF PRETEND

Tell me -
that I’ll find dulcet
intoxicating,
as you stare
helpless,
beyond spent tokens
of your secret lover -
depositing low
unsympathetic
sustained gasps,
one upon the next.

“When I am speaking
I wish you wouldn’t.”
Not that you could.

Try –
and I’ll leer a flash
fleeting victory
over this tortured wickedness
we’ve masqueraded as love.
That, which has tinkered my soul
in slights of hand
masking denials torn,
jester, juxtaposing passion
as the car keys from our nightstand
or stubs belonging to a concert
I’ve never attended.

“Now, observe these hands, my dear.”
Now you see ‘em,
now they squeeze,
until you writhe no more
in self inflicted misfortunes.
This blank soul coddles your vacuous heart no further,
except to caress its beat to stillness
resembling that rock of char
slovenly hurled in my direction.

Farewell, those nuptial promises
as loose dangling toes
into forever skinny-dipped Spring
while I make everlasting futile attempts
to pry that erotic senility
from your cold dead lips.