insults

Semiautomatic insults fly,

And I dance hard in the crosshairs.

 

I understand it better because it hurts

Like a belly wound that won’t stop gushing.

 

All senses tuned perfectly to the pain.

Minor explosion; something musical.

 

I can't tell my aches from yours.

I can't find the border, and the compass is dead.

 

Seems like I’ve been a foreigner all day,

And I just received a greeting in my native tongue.

 

I wouldn’t even know how to sort and file such

Strange and colorful creatures if I could reach them.

 

When you spoke the universe doubled over,

The stars all fizzled and my mind turned into a bomb.

 

For that exceptional instant, I felt cured;

Palsied fingers entangled in the sun’s bright garments.

 

Blood pumped like the iron arms of a locomotive

Behind my endless blue stare. Precious white noise.

 

You were just the miraculous catastrophe I needed.

A wildfire to ease the deepest Winter freeze.

 

Trees wrap up in flame-shawls as I walk past, dogs yawp,

Children scream for their mothers. Synapses short out.

 

I have just solved the entire equation.

Golden anvil falls from Heaven and onto my head.

 

I am every foul name you called me,

And that proves, undisputedly,

 

That my joyous fears were all unjustified.

Even when my anemic aura turns to soupy black bile

 

I still exist.