By Kareem Lawall
Part 1
We both knew you had me when my eyes found yours.
The contours of your frame and the whisper of my name,
Made gravity change from the floor to your allure.
So sure of our fate as I answered your hushed call,
Not much for religion yet in your smile I saw God.
Not love in my chest but passion and lust,
The man gripping your hand meant so little to us.
No fuss was made as you came toward me,
The innocence in your eyes won over his envy.
In a sense we were proper no reason to second guess,
Our caresses stayed hidden, our only tell the thumps from our chests.
The spotlight shone bright,
Our short dance felt eternal,
And so began our tryst,
Seeped deep in turmoil.
Part 2
Primordial the instinct you’ve awoken in me.
So potent the pheromones released in the air that I breathe.
You seize my chest cavity with an ease all your own
Forever in the back of my mind, like my brain’s shadow.
I suppose we move too fast but looking back is for the old,
My hormones won’t allow for reason to take hold.
Please, let me go, I sense something amiss
A heartlessness in the core of whatever this is,
My heart less than open, yet you somehow flood in,
Anything that’s this good can be only a sin,
Yet I always lose the instinct to leave in the taste of her kiss.
Part 3
Restless nights lead into dream-filled days.
The feel, the feelings, both thrilling and terrifying.
It’s a fantasy,
Wrapped in a conundrum,
Dipped in intrigue.
One smile,
Filling my head near to over filling.
One hope,
Burning bright in a black hole of doubts.
One idea,
Thought at first without thinking,
Now hooked too deep to shake out.
One name,
A cool breeze in a lethal heat.
One and only One.
Lost in our surety.
Blinded by a truth,
Burning white hot to the core.
We know it’s crazy,
Still we revel in the idea.
It’s Unreal the grip she has,
Not even casting a second glance.
The bittersweet dance we’ve set underway,
May just have me entranced.
Entrapped in my embrace before you spin away.
As you sway in my arms,
I may dip you so far,
Before the song ends to be continued another day.
Part 4
There’s a sickness in my system,
Fallin’ victim to your wishes and whims.
Committin’ sins with disregard,
Of how hard my heart hardens in the transition.
Forgiven with no hesitation,
Palpitations when you saunter through my thoughts.
I fought it at the onslaught,
Swattin’ chrysalises from my stomach.
Knew you were the wrong one,
But bein’ honest the conflict is why I love it.
The struggle, the fire, the passion that’s so lackin’ in my day to day,
Daily go a couple rounds,
K.O.ing ‘til it’s O.K.
No say in what we do,
Two fools swept off our feet,
Free-falling from sanity,
Our intensity keeps at a heat,
That burns out the doubt & regret so deep in we.
Feeling up to my ears in sweat, tears, and screams.
While it may seem what we feel is real from time to time,
Sipping any deeper of this ether may as well be suicide.
Part 5
It continues because we don’t end it.
Cold and stiff as rigor mortis,
Your disposition in my presence.
Your smile,
Your laugh,
The black holes of your eyes,
Fill my stomach with bile and my heart with loathing.
From my scalp to my sole,
I know it never was love.
Just lust,
Mixed with the rush of how hushed we must be,
When “you” and “I” became “us.”
Possessed by the opportunity to dance with one possessing the same tune as me,
Yet our waltz waned down as our secret saw light,
Gave insight into what’s real,
Not what I wanted to feel.
So despite once good times,
And fun long past,
What we have in the here and now,
Is at its best quite bad.
I know I should be sad,
But I’m not.
Just honest.
We may have been swept up in the beginning,
But what comes next is on us.
The Abington Review Volume 13 