Home » Poems » Phillip Landers » Coming Clean

Coming Clean

The taste of you is still sharp on my tongue.
Beside me your form, vulnerable in sleep, 
Unaware of the stroke of my hand along your spine.
All day I gaze at the gentle swell of my stomach, 
Patterned with traces of silver and brown,
Your greying hair.

I’m sick of this routine.
Afterwards, you doze and I think.
I cannot stand to look at you,
Poisoned as you are, I am far more content 
To comb over the many images and scenes of us I have in my mind,
A library perhaps you could call it.

Each time we are “together,”
I can’t help looking at your contorted face,
It amazes me to see so many thick, oozing emotions, 
Growing at an almost grotesque rate.
They remind me of garden weeds.  
In a struggle, they easily lose their thorned plumes, 
But always leave a resilient root, embedded deep,
Soon to flourish again and willingly present itself 
For another wounding.

I am nothing like you.
I’m pure, like an angel.
Typically vindictive, your catlike body,
Curls against mine, and tries to argue otherwise.
Its useless, you should know that
Chastity is not purity, 
Merely similar in its perversity.

Your phone flashes your husbands name,
But you’re too busy dozing to move, 
Snorting and grunting in you sleep, 
Roast beef or pasta, which meal tonight?
I now also feel drowsy, satisfied.
I have left my scent on you, and now you are my territory.
I will store the memory in the library for later.

Same time tomorrow? 
I can predict it.
You will arrive indignant, complaining that
I’m so silent, impassive and unresponsive.
You mean nothing to me.
Self indulgent, wallowing in your sin.

God bless my purity.
An infection in a tender wound,
Stripping me away piece by piece, 
Leaving me bare, exposed and empty.
Purity is just defeat, and I am long lost,
Be it a blessing or a curse,
It’s in the blood.

A faint smile escapes me as I think of us,
Weaving our immaculate dance,
And I think of my purity,
Like a dancer’s failed pirouette.
As we lie here,
The eight wonder of the world.

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