In the first shelf of your Adam’s Apple,
I am an angry exchange of smoldering dialogue. I am a chipped-off expletive, nursing an injured wing that is hanging on by a loose strand of fire. I am a breathless apology that you sketch onto my palm, after a burning night of passionate intimacy that sets my cells on fire. I am your impatient gesture to the summer moon, as you ask it to slide into our room – soak up the heat, but leave the burns.
In the second shelf of your Adam’s Apple,
I am a literature lecture, left off on the cliffhanger of a lover’s death. I am a calculated series of linear equations, of numbers with wayward tails that twist into a defiant poem of their own. I am a to-do list with bulging breasts, imprinted with every task except ‘pause and live’.
In the third shelf of your Adam’s Apple,
I am an inch-deep dark circle, awkwardly mingled with the inevitable blackness of a punched-in eye. I am a crimson tunnel bitten around nail cuticles, that spiral around the thumb and reach for the palm, with a scarlet claw extending towards the life-line.
In the fourth shelf of your Adam’s Apple,
I am the wrestle between sleep and consciousness, an enthusiastic fist-fight that crumples paper eyelids. I am a pile of crumpled paper eyelids, stamped with tears, engraved with kisses. I am a hasty calculation on an account book, pushed through aligned columns of economical notability, till I am a gaping cavity of numerical blankness.
In the fifth shelf of your Adam’s Apple,
I am the uneasy crunch of overcooked bread, an annoyed wrinkle on a stench-overwhelmed nose. I am a stifled cough, a suppressed giggle, a partly-sampled-and-then-discarded poem’s stanza with the teeth marks painfully ripe.
In the sixth shelf of your Adam’s Apple,
I realize I am but a spittle.
