when they say the child is missing
do you at once know who to blame.

do you know guilt when you see it.  
do you know its color.  
do you remember its voice.

when the child is found dead do you think first of the smell.  
are you sickened.  

do you listen when they call the suspect’s name.  
do you mistake it for your own.  
for a name you know.

do you thirst then for justice or for punishment.

do you loathe the blindfold on justice.  
do you long to pull it off.  
do you see it as askew.
would you be willing to pull it off to feel better. 

if the word “guilty” is uttered do you feel warm.  
snuggly as dog in bed warm.  
cozy at home.

if the words “not guilty” are uttered are you unsatisfied.  
do you feel more unemployed.  
do you feel more broke.

do you imagine a better life if everyone were only to be punished as you desire.

do you know how a television works.

do you know how lethal injection is performed.  

did you see it on television.

do you long to turn on the television.  

do you want to pull the switch.

are you a victim.  

of course you are. 

The bluntest thing I ever did
was spit you out.
To pop you from my still-unsated mouth
and let you fall and crust with dirt
was no proper farewell.
There should have been
some gentler acknowledgment
of how we had burned together
in friction and in revelry,
of how the scent that lingered over us
was not solely stench,
but incense too.

To put it more bluntly still,
what I have said to myself since was a lie.
To make it even more plain: yes, I loved you.
You tasted of constant and true
and you lay upon my tongue
more readily than my own flavor did.
You asked for something simple from me
and what I did in response was find

a single knot of distaste,
one thing I could talk myself into despising
on the nights when uncertainty crept up
and stole my sleep,
one thing I groomed and stretched
and poked until it soured
and all went flat,
and then

I spit you out. I let you fall
from me and looked at you
discarded upon the ground
covered in specks and flecks
of filth that were not you,
which I could use to justify
never picking you up
and lifting you back to my mouth
ever again.
And then, I blamed you
for the soil where you’d landed.

There is no apology I can make
that will make that go away,
but if it matters to you, I can say
that how you made me feel
cannot happen
in this life again.
Every time I am offered
something new,
something recommended,
something tempting, pure
in its wrapper just seconds ago.
I lick my lips
and think of you,
a smear in the sand
where I discarded you,
I recall the way ashes taste and
while I may partake,
I will never enjoy
anything as fully as I did
the first time
I laid you
upon my tongue.