"The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life."

-Shakespeare

 Post-Romantic Bop

She avoids my eyes like there’s

Something she doesn’t want to say

I don’t know what it is

I’m not going to ask

It’s bad strategy

Either she’ll pull it up and spit it out

Or we’ll leave it like that

First it seemed incidental

Now it’s intentional and awkward

Whatever I said or did

Got under her skin and it itches

It’s contagious now I need to scratch

This is why my love has no words

Critique and judgment spill too much

And discretion allows me courage

Enough to hold my tongue

Once it’s all out you can’t put it back

In a process of stealing my life back

I’ve learned to assume it belonged to me

All along

What she says about me may be true but

I don’t have to settle for it

I don’t need to assume any authority in it 

I used to dance… or

There was a dance

I used to do

There was a time... 

We’ve gone out of our minds

From hypocrisy

We stayed out 

Nobody wants to know

Why we sing blues

Play black keys

And paint outside lines

No one cares if we want to be free

Free from what

From Jazz

Truth

From words that harden like concrete

We are what we make of ourselves

Outlaws pushing boundaries

Running from or toward something

That wants to kill or devour us

She did it to me

I did it to her

So we do it to them

All I can do is prevaricate 

No truth fits my mouth

Anymore

We lost track

Years ago

I peeled her askance eyes from my forehead

Before telling her not to remake me

In her own image

After untying a bag of ferrets

She left around my neck