you are a tyrant,
foaming at the mouth and eyes,
and i am your conductor.

i tread carefully,
for you are cold.

you want to wrap your arms about me,
carelessly,
and i want to drum emotions into you.
i am not allowed.

you condescend me,
briny eyes narrowed analytically,
and i am small.
i am yours to call and command,
and you are mine to revel in,
so long as i don't look too closely beneath
your skin and nails.

i hold your loamy hands within mine
like you're about to roar and thunder and
whisper away,
and you are here and gone in an instant:
unforgivable.

this is not about you, this is about music,
a sonata of my romance, my obsession
of you,
to describe how much i can't understand you.

your vicious grip on my bones
is grating at my eyelids,
my lips that are tensed shut,
like you want to take my life from me.

you are enthralled by me,
the foreign thing you are not.
i hold my body stiffly as you caress my jaw
and scalp,
salt fizzling on your fingertips.
i pretend that i do not care,
and that you are not a monster -
a gaping maw about to consume me alive.

i am not indifferent:
i am quiescent.