Assembly Required

Pop another Tic-Tac and salivate,

Wait until the taste is gone and kiss it on the cheek,

Betrayal of the inside,

Smiles spilling out profusely

Just to crush them underfoot

When I am finally alone.

There’s a minty fresh odour in the voice,

Critical pressures in the air

Trudging through the mud

In the space between,

This transformative zone is where it happens,

Where You and I is You and it,

Where once there was a face,

Now a mask.

Often subject to erosion

And a family of other metaphoric geology,

Like fault lines and quakes,

Not eruptions.

Buried just below the surface

He survives,

In this self-made cinematic prison cell

Oxygen is not the breath’s foundation,

Inhalation thrives on freedom,

Expression,

But with every desperate gulp

He’s one step closer to repression,

And he knows it.