Poem: Why It's Worse When You Cheat

[scottwoods]

WHY IT’S WORSE WHEN YOU CHEAT

Because while I can give,
you receive.
You provide access.
You open.

What you give is you,
is canvas, open your arms
and thighs and mouth
to the medium of another artisan.

Whatever nectar can
come out of you
becomes his to taste.
You give this.

You give this, even while plates
are full to bursting;
the menu crammed black with hunger and options,
dessert your entrance gasps, your cursing praise.

Because while I could bash away with the best
of them, love never really enters me.
I never become something you could paint on,
a work, worlds that create.

What you give is yourself,
a window in an open door,
every hole of you filled,
everything I ever did sliding gesso onto itself.

Because I have spent all
of my money on pedastals only
to discover you are scared
of heights.

Whatever you told me
about how overcome you were
was never enough to keep the oceans
in your belly from becoming hurricanes.

You give this and I sit
at a table set for three, passing down
the laughter and the sickness,
remember sucking them out of you like wine.

Because while I can wait for you,
your spaces do not keep time.
Because while I can wait for you,
what I don’t know, I do.

Because while I can wait for you,
you did not wait for me,
when time was cheap and easy
to track, by the breath, by their lengths.