Scarf Throw

Wrap me around your throat like a scarf, let me be insidious.

Tuck me into your jacket and light up a cigarette to pretend

That you're inhaling smoke and not the toxins of day-old perfume.

Go ahead and take the compliment because I do look pretty

Wrapped around the strong lines of your neck, clinging like sweat.

~

The shadow of me is more powerful than any physical aphrodisiac.

But you and your addiction to what you cannot have know it well.

You've stolen this from me, coerced my soul into bowing low enough

That you can slip my scarf off and put an invisible collar in its stead.

I am the only one who seems capable of hearing the cowbell.

~

It's a pitiable thing that you don't realize what escapades your soul

Gets up to in the middle of the night, when the universes are close,

Brushing shoulders with impossibilities that bleed into realities.

Can you taste me in the back of your mouth or on the tip of your tongue?

Do I mix better in your soul with cigarettes, wine, or whiskey?

~

I am the dream lost to your attempted maturity and I can feel you bleed

Desire like a disease into the open arms of the universe and I wonder,

Can you feel me too? Whispering at the edges of your thoughts?

I am wrapped around your throat, licking up your carotid with memories

Yet to be made and desires still unfulfilled banging on your ribcage.

~

Go on then, pick up the call. Skim through the pages. Beg the stars.

Dip your hands into the night sky and tear the moonlight apart

Until nothing but the black cavern of possibilities yawns between us.

Then, dip your toes into the chasm, wrap the scarf around your throat,

And shudder from the release of the expectation that this won't end well.