A Bloody Patience

A Bloody Patience

I wait and wait,
with only patience for company.
Patience, that no good, annoying foreign exchange student
staying with you
that hardly speaks a word
of shared language,
or your kid sister,
worlds apart
forced to share the same air
and vowels and consonants
you have no say in.

I wait and I wait
for a crumb from a plate
to quench this overwhelming starved hunger in me.
Knowing pessimism and cynicism
runs across my palms
in all the lines
those palm readers squint at
with mysterious, money-hungry eyes,
with fingers that try to steal my future
for themselves
in the presence of my outstretched untrusting hand.
My eyes still sparkle with endless hope though,
like a creature blinded by the roaring strange 4 by 4 beast’s beaming lights
heading my way.

I wait and I wait
for the loss of silence to words,
reciting the script
my mind keeps redrafting
in the silences, the world keeps with me,
but nothing of what I want
comes from you.

The occasional burst of suggestion
makes my eyes sparkle anew,
my heart play cliche
and skip a beat
that has my fingers twitching
for the doctor’s number,
but stability returns
within seconds,
the bitter equilibrium is reestablished once again

and I’m left empty-handed
in silence alone,
with nothing but that bloody patience
waffling on in a foreign tongue
I have no time or sympathy for,
even when told it’s the language of love
cause he breaths not a word
of the letters your voice owns.