Forget all else I have told you.
There is no calm inside me,
no serenity
no silence.
I have told you
I have nothing more to say
but I do
I do
and it comes out
only in wails at myself
when I get away from you.
I have hidden what I am:
a teething child
snapping at tombstones
and bricks.
I have chewed a box of knives
down to their handles,
gnawed curbs and sidewalks
for the taste of the moss in their cracks
and the feet that tread them.
I have ground my teeth down
to a mouthful of grit
and bloody nubs of gum.
I polish the back of my throat
in swallows.
Even that brings no quiet.
Call a dentist, please
please please.
Build me
a new grin with pieces
of chalk.
I was born with
a blackboard tongue
that needs scrawls
bitten into it.
This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.
