Indifference

Take a sip of my warm indifference
As it stains the dog-eared pages of your hopes 
Discolors your coffee table with wet rings like crop circles
Signifying the alienness of us, of that once love 
I hope you bury it in sugar, the suffocation of sweetners
Strangle it with tea bag strings and syrup 
And I laugh hysterically as you toss salt in, thinking its sugar
I hope you gag on the lukewarmness of my love 
The bitterness of letting the tea bag steep for a little too long
So that you may suffer never knowing if I loved you a little more than I hate you or hated you a little more than I loved you
Because indifference is the in between, but mine is tender
Sweetly torturing you over if I loved you more or less
Like love and hate, stalemates at the blade
Pushing and pushing a little here and a little there
For a little more sugar, and a little less sugar 
Is the indifferent tea that we taste. 

-anna sluder

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Like Like

"I like you" I opened the paper bag. It was still innocent, pulsing like butterfly wings incredibly alone and incredibly alive and I swept my fingertips along the greased sides gathering a bit of blood as it trembled warily I inched my hand across the table like easing poker chips forward into the colosseum of games and fears where no one comes out alive "I raise you," I whisper, tipping my closed hand ever so slightly so that I poured my blood onto the table like turning a time glass of sand. I waited. The time was caustic, like a match burning to the end. Then he nodded in admiration and we played on like children finding little things in the forest flowers and twigs and climbing and scraping our knees on trees trying to make sense of a collection of unplanned entities "I love you" I stared back down into my lap, into the bag, into the dark aorta and the valves I wrapped my fingers around it and eased it out with the timidity and doe...
Read more

Visiting Grandma

Charlie, you must know Old Grandma Vivienne is a wild old hoot, No more than that, she's a crazy old bat, No, no, no, a sadistic psychedelic maniac So as mother always says: Don't listen to what she says, don't take her candy when offered, and don't smell her flowers, She used to be an apothecary you know. Oh Lydia! I'm sure she's not so bad, just you wait I'm sure Old Grandma Vivienne is nice, No Charlie! Don't listen to what she says, don't take her candy when offered, and don't smell her flowers! She used to be a mortician you know She can't be all of those things, Lydia! But! I promise that I won't listen to what she says, I won't take her candy when offered, or smell her flowers Good Charlie, because she used to be a taxidermist you know. At early noon, Charlie trekked through weeds and fallen logs, Chanting all Lydia had told him: Don't listen to what she says, don't take her candy when offered, and don't ...
Read more

in fear of love

I want to write you letters, to buy you flowers, to run my fingers through your hair. I know nothing about love, but I know how to do if perfectly, I think I would be a really good lover, I would be good at loving you. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings from watching films and reading books. I wish we could love each other without our bodies. My body can't quite fit around this soul, it is too large in some places and too small in others. I stretch and pull like taffy but there are too many miles of skin. I wish our souls could meet without our bodies, so you wouldn't know the tragedy of analyzing my eyes, the glances, the motion of limbs or lack of it. I wish you knew the buzzing ball of light and energy that is my soul, before you knew the vessels, skin, and hair that cover it. I want to draw you over me like a blanket and whisper to the universe in the space between our souls; and write you letters, and buy you flowers, and run my fingers through your hair...
Read more