i did nothing with you once, remember?

when i say it was not there

i mean there was not-it here

and we did it never, that nothing.

how much does a confession of abdomen

pain mean in a young body segregated world?

this much. can you see the wide arms

my words make for me? this much!

in the supermarket, the old man wonders

whether he belongs to the ten-items-or-under queue.

at the zoo, the boy stays hungry

because the sign says do not feed the animals

and he knows he is a beast too.

descartes tries to say it in a language

only he can doubt and thereby know

but all he manages is to grow a rose

and toss it into the past.

look at it— my secrets crunching under

my own trespassing feet, all signs of sham.

~ ajay

20/6/2022