The Sound of Anxiety

I 

I walked out and into

The thick darkness of penumbras

The night was black

And heavy as oil

My steps were muffled

By the inviolable echo

Of deafening silence

The tremulous whispers

Of the agitated wind

Cut off my throat

And lisped the words

Of fear

II

I woke up shaken

By my alarm’s blaring siren

As it broke the static silence

Of slumber

Like a knife

Ripping through a silken thread

Of dreams

I gasped as if I had surfaced

From a roaring ocean’s pit

And emerged victorious from the sea’s

Tornado of waves

III

Subtle shafts of morning light

Seeped through the cracks

Of my sealed glass windows

And I grew tense

By the screeching hum

Of the lit

Quiet space

The stuttering

Of my rusty heater’s crackle

Attempted to convey codes

Of anonymous significance

Through gentle taps

Like desperate supplications

Of burned

And withered  

Cries

IV

The train ride suffocated me

With a clutter of voices

Like an arrhythmic symphony

Of sputtered incoherence

My head, a grove

For restless termites

A cavity

For inarticulate multitudes

V

And your voice –

The lovely croon –   

Was suppressed and strangled

My attempts to heed

Your warnings

Distanced you from my reach

Your face –  deformed

Like jagged reflections

On distorted prisms

Parted its slanted lips

And gargled final words

Before drowning in the well

The Confession

Karl’s hands felt cold and clammy against his face, as he wiped the rolling beads of sweat from his temples. He shut his eyes, tucked his lips, and inhaled as deeply as his lungs allowed – so deep it hurt his chest and made him cough twice.  He opened his eyes – bright and fierce as blue sapphire – cleared his throat and, in one impulsive drift, took a step inside.

He sat stiff and inert – his body weighed down by disarrayed thoughts, incomprehensible feelings of torturous desire – while his heart fluttered wildly, like a caged butterfly’s filament wings. He attempted to release the words, but his mouth felt dry, so he gulped bitter spit and tried again. In his forty devout years, he had never struggled to serve as much as he struggled today. Not even his social anxiety or acute shyness had impeded him from clamoring the hymns of the lord Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. But today something had gone awry; his convictions had gone astray, and he felt defeated, ashamed, and smoldered before the eyes of his father. 

He was suddenly nauseated and faint by the cubicle’s musty odor. Shame’s sour and acidic aroma emanated from the booth’s four corners, clouding his senses. The intolerable secrets of every filthy sinner remained alive, had never been buried; their souls had never been absolved, and now they lingered and suffocated him, pressing against his long torso like a horde of wild harlots.

Karl’s nervous stupor made him sweat profusely like a swine before slaughter; his unyielding body now jerked uncontrollably. “Damnation of the evilest kind has befallen upon my soul. I shall boil in repentance for the rest of eternity,” he thought, agonized in sin. He had come with the singlehanded mission of parting the waters and freeing himself from the shackles of faith, but now his remorse was such, that he could not lift his head, and his long beard rested upon his knees soaking his mortified tears. 

All the while, his thoughts pierced him like blades, and although his body seethed in penitence, he could not stop his demons from conquering the mind. His blood ached as much as his genitals did; he was consumed with lust, with wrath, with gluttonous carnal cravings. “Oh, help me, my lord. I am devoid of true virtue. I ache with the longing of touching his flesh, the flesh of the noble servant awaiting my regrets.”

                     … “Shall we start,” asked the priest. Karl smiled and his sapphire eyes shone their fiercest blue.  “Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It’s been seven days since my last confession…”

A Grandmother's Touch

I think of your hands decades before mine

Entering the world curved and frail

Smooth and soft as cream

Fresh as luscious fruit

Unharmed and untouched

By time

I think of your hands nimble and fickle

Your nails polished and prim

Tapping on the jaws of a typewriter

The sound, like pellets of rain

A soothing afternoon symphony

Of childhood

I think of your hands during sleepless midnight hours

Bleary and dazed, hurrying to feel him

By your side

                               I think of them lonely

And desperate beneath the sheets

The crevices between your fingers smothering

Your fears in prayer  

I think of your hands as emblems

Of age – the wrinkles between your knuckles

Like the split dry branches of a tree,

Bare before the bitter glacial breeze

Of winter

But I cannot think of them

Still as stones

The protruding veins parched and empty

When they have finally yielded

 To the peril of years

I cannot think of your hands

Like scattered carcass

Cold as bones

Moving On

I counted your steps as you walked away

And with my gaze I stroked the curls of your nape –

Golden like wheat – like silent Sunday

Caresses, clutching warm sheets of morning stillness

With the tips of my fingers

I traced every angle of your back –

Broad and bold –

Until it was no more than a fissure

In the distance,

A splinter in the wind

And with my lips of inflamed crimson

I blew a kiss

So that it may seek you

And love you tenderly

When the rain pours

Crude and cold as blades

Or truth