Unanswered Letters

Simply sitting on a dusty bookcase of fiction
Beneath pages of verse, prose and unanswered letters

I wrote you once, but never placed
That off white letter in the mail,
I wasted the stamp (it was glued firmly)
To the trivial words I scrawled on the page,
Because I couldn’t say in person what I felt,
My hand would not allow confessions,
Emotion paralyzed ink,
You are not the first to be
The unrecipient of my prosthetic prose,

My lips catch on metal wires
My lips quiver with a certainty of rejection,
In retreat I run to the nearest gift shop
To buy cards and posey plastered stationary
That cannot absorb the iron ink of truths,
Apologetic for my deficiencies,
Angry at my hands refusal to budge
Angry at my hearts refusal to submit,
My lethargic letters sit unanswered,
Unreceived, cause I was afraid of your response
I craved a real answer,
I file away my hollowed-heart pretenders.

Aug 22 2001