Ian Anderson

 Straitjacket

If I were so direct
I would just tell you I loved you—
that more than anything
it was just you
always.
but instead as my love
comes awkward and around corners,
like a homeless man playing a violin
and collecting pennies
in a tunnel full of automobiles,
bumping at random
in wisps of sweetness
and moments of jealousy.
Schizophrenic and two faced
were the depths of my personality
until I awoke that morning next to you.
How can I speak through two mouths at once?
The ventriloquist
and a lovesick mongrel
rolling on my back at your feet,
and licking you each minute
with my rough tongue
to let you know how often
I fall in love with you.
I walk down streets between pillars of icy metal
and though I pull on my leash
I don’t want to escape
don’t let me pull away
Just let me guide you,
as you guide me
by my hand,
your arms
reaching down into the abyss
dislodged my heart from the layers of silt and filth that surrounded it
and dragged my pale cadaver up along its banks
as I writhed, begging dearly
for the blackness sealed within your tattooed hips,
you pressed instead a lilac
into the palm of my hand
and as the petals pressed softly to my veins
it grew roots inside my flesh,
vines twisting around beneath my bones,
they shatter and splinter
beneath your force
like the diamonds I gave you,
crushed to nothing under the dark beauty of your face
their fragments, too,
 have been absorbed back into me,
as I internalize all your faults,
creating perfection from your mold.
I stand and paint with the woman
with blood-ink on my fingertips,
and a straitjacket around me
keeping me as warm
and reigning me in
like your embrace—
the white sleeves press my wrists against my back
and I am no longer able to paint,
yet I draw out long weaving lines on the white floor
with a calligrapher’s brush between my teeth
in this asylum
where as a patient I write upon the walls
songs and prayers of spilled ink
pressing you to bring my heart back to me
then convincing you to keep it
keep me within my padded walls
behind the bars
where I may hide from your visions
leave this world in peace
and follow my blood-pen back into the abyss
but as you pressed your lips to my cold mouth
I returned
to flesh and bone
to you—
a god
without a throne.