Chalk lines

Funny how you should ask that question
You asked me that a few days ago
I'm really not the sort you know,
the sort that
tells you I've been doing badly even if I have been
to a singular,
ceremonious question of
"How are you?"

I've been okay
although at the moment,
I'm ready to parcel myself into pieces at the thought of you

The thought
I had always believed,
in the way the religious believe,
could move me into entirety and forever

My writing's been going okay
I've been told though

Restrain yourself,
restrain yourself

when just a few days ago,
you told me I restrain myself too much
and I should just
let go

It's a funny world

I said,
It's a funny world

While one wants me to to put rubberbands on my words
so they don't spill all over the place
in its meaningless, lukewarm vanity

another ponders on the rubberbands around my soul
and its baffling knot around my heart
threatening to submit both entities to expiry if tugged

I'm telling you this

So am I still restrained now, sir

Go on, pull on these bands so you have some answers
on what I look like
sound like write like when I come undone

Not very pretty and mysterious now is it

What did I tell you about the Midas Touch

And what have we here now

This intensity,
this strength
this potential
coined on the terms of others which I never even believe existed

now collapses into pulp through a sieve

into an epitaph of what is now my own

Don't be ridiculous, I'm okay
I have drawn numerous lines for you remember
in chalk no less, for its fleeting quality

Fleeting like you really

So each time you cross it
I can erase that and draw another

further
much much further than the one prior

so you can come back in the manner I always let you

So how can I not be
okay

I'm just tired

so no more lines

no more