Intrusive

Why must it be intrusive to express
those passive feelings left again when
emptiness invades; there isn't space
enough for aching heart and tortured
breath to palliate an endless bellyache

Responding to the text of messages
which meant to ease or least redress
an accidental anxiousness, a death
of needless agonised concerns that
weave into a desperate disgrace

They are signs you earned this place
in hearts concerned outside your own;
to feel interned by circumstance of
birth or patronage effaces its reality -
these indeed are people of your caste

To wear it in a face disguised with
syrup smile and words designed as
shades of pallid grey won’t win their
confidence – they know the shape of
where and why and how you failed

Take the consequence as rent to pay
to live aloof of life you parody in verse
you've yet to write in words that rail
against your own fragility – admit your
love and be at least in peace immune
© 12 August 2010, I. D. Carswell