I read them, and then I threw them in the trash, but make no mistake, I read them.
I swallowed them whole. I filled my eyes with every word, I sewed them in patterns into my flesh of my body, at night I wake to entertain the ghosts lounging in my bedroom with impromptu recitations of your letters, of your thoughts, of the shape of you in words
but I could not keep your letters.
I could not let them languish in a dusty box, fermenting into poisons in the closet dark. I could not let them lie in wait, like coiled paper vipers ready to strike the hand that strays too far and stirs the den.
This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published August 1st, 2012.















