Worm

shiseido red breathes itself into
that dawn
from yesterdays and cold-fronts,
and the frosts of our seasons
situate themselves on the outside,
guard our borders like knives at the ready
-unbalanced force.
i believe it just in time to feel
your insinuations, your paper-thin words,
and it isn't enough to turn and walk away.
it isn't enough to say i'm not afflicted,
that you do not affect me.

i thought you'd left,
and i thought it was just this new road,
that i'd focus on the map ahead,
but you just keep, and you keep,
and you
are not the apple i had thought.
still, i can't decide the serpent from the fruit,
the sin from the redemption,
the man from the boy i used to be.
it's eating, from the inside.