Gut worms of fearful intuition
squirrel through the belly,
whisper words like witches,
hexing all who don’t listen.
Slipknots of thoughts twist around
wrapping and weaving themselves
so tightly the edges fuse together,
so they’ll never be untied:
The lies
settled like a cloud of nerve gas
on our perfect fucking fairy tale.
Costumed in facepaint to hide your
blemishes and scars, heart hidden
deep under a cheap superhero cape.
I knew you weren’t who you said you were—
the worms said told me by mouthing words
I couldn’t hear but instinctively knew.
Still I could read their lips
and the clues you left me
that I collected, but not your heart.
So I worked under a single light bulb
in the darkness at 4 am while you
were up: creeping, crawling.
I analyzed the evidence left,
and using binoculars to look half the world away
concluded that you were crawling, creeping.
When night turned to day,
all the clues evaporated. Confined to my mind as
immaterial, unsubstantiated “claims”.
My gut worms were invisible with you, inside you, saw the
dark soul beneath the cape & blemishes to your core.
Their squirming mouths told me I was right.
The lies twisted as roots supporting a hologram tree:
Off of which I picked hologram fruit,
never could get full, be satisfied.
Driven by hunger for more fruit,
something real, fleshy, and juicy, I took
my binoculars & deerstalker hat on a search.
The worms led me to the real you without costume
and as I realized this was definitely you, no lies,
they burrowed back into my gut.
