by Katherine Barrington

Created on: January 19, 2009

Circular Motion

Explaining myself to you is like screaming at a blank wall.

My words ricochet and fall to the floor,

clinking like metal rings

on the unscratched surface of your ideal.

They leave no mark, no hint

of their having been absorbed,

no less heard,

by your selective ears.

I don't want to hurt you,

but my patience is streaming away

with the constant flow of thread through a spinning wheel.

You speak and I listen,

but feel as though your words are

siphoned through a funnel,

having only one direction in which to go and

spinning toward that destination

with ever-increasing certainty.

I think I love you, you say to me.

The whirling rainbow of my mind

stutters, then continues to circulate with

such ferocity that I could not being

to sort them through

had I a sieve with which to strain these thoughts.

What is love, I want to ask you.

Is it the force which compels you

to act as though I am already yours?

Something to father,

something to withhold or give away?

I do not fault you your cyclical persistence,

nor pity you the sting of unrealized ideals.

Were I a stronger person,

I might tell you why I do not return your sentiments,

but I do not trust the strength

of the words which flow from my lips,

too easily bypassing

the scythes of reason in my mind

that would hew them down to gentility.

I wish I could say I would be patient,

help you to understand, but

explaining myself to you is like screaming at a blank wall.

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