slipping

i know you are a monster, slip-dripping through my whiskey-soaked brain,

whispering at me;

i wish that i knew chess.

crawling up my cheekbones, rubbing at my throat.

and i know that you are beautiful too,

the way you describe the oceans, the seasons, the smells, the cities,

the way you trace beautiful words about beautiful things,

and i shift uncomfortably, wishing anything made sense --

wishing. i wish my brain were an active participant,

admiring the adjectives, filling out the verbs,

as if someday, if i could pick apart the grammar,

and finally align myself with the nouns, with the verbs,

and let the adjectives and adverbs flesh myself out.

but i still slip-drip and stumble through my story,

as i try to crawl up, leaving trails of ooze in my throat,

coaxing the words out, ugly, hissing, soaked.

i do not like you: the way you whisper at me,

the way you pretend to know chess;

the slipping and the dripping as you describe me, or us.

but maybe you find peace in the ooze,

maybe you find peace in the participles, eyeing the nouns and the verbs.

maybe i am not a monster. maybe the oozing is adverbial --

the slip-dripping softening my anger, softening the adjectives.

maybe someday i will give up the adjectives,

shun the adverbs, look for peace in the small places,

in the participles, the gerunds,

the way my tongue wants to talk so much,

and i blink dumbly, and laugh a little bit,

and i retreat into grammar,

where i can point out, describe, elucidate my failings.

and i wait for you, your adjectives, how i exist;

what adverbs you think of me as you watch me move.

but i feel like a noun around you, like a thing,

like i could adopt some verbs,

peppered with descriptions.

you understand my adjectives,

you kiss me when i should shut up, but smiling.

i feel like my grammar fits your grammar,

like your verbs fit my nouns,

and our adjectives and adverbs play upon each other,

linked with prepositions,

all the parts of speech hovering, like aunts.

i am stretching my hands out, like i am playing with a preposition,

or a descriptor, tracing my thumbtip down the outlines of a sentence.

and i sit back, chewing my nails.