Two Sides

Written while I have (most likely) the flu. No idea what or who it’s about. Which is kind of fun, like, if you have the flu and a really really low bar.

Was it an angel or a stranger 
Who peered over your face
Wielding ice like a wager 
To cool your flame-inflamed fate 

Was it a kiss or a test
Rewound cassettes in my mind 
That first dance
Hummed in trance
Bound to kindling,
Your fire

Were fingers laced or disgraced 
In a shape that held meaning 
But then lingered at length 
Until you longed for time beings  

Then did you miss it again 
When you tried to release me
Did you rewind the threads 
But you could no longer appease me

Is it true

I’m most me 

When black and blue 

In bruised dreams 

Or is it fair
To say that you 
Showed two sides—
 
So I never knew 

Stability 
Or what’s wrong with me 
Or what you’d see
If you’d let

Me. 
Be. 

So go on, disrupt 
Paint morality murals

Too polite to unplug
Tapes—

But we no longer own players  

Yet if there’s a prize
For endurance
Then surely I’ve earned it 

Let me bring home the gold 
Coin that foretold 
The two sides  

And a truth
I know you’ll 
Never show

©Rachel Nasatka. All rights reserved. You can’t have her she’s mine.