Leaned Against the Trope The Demands to be Denied


Leaned against the trope that demands
   to be denied, this tree grips

the promise of abstraction in its faintest branch.

An altar presupposes a promise.

The existence of a tree assumes nothing
and a river is a mirage in the mind of a tree.

I am doing everything
      in my power
to avoid the urge I seek to end, but that doesn’t work : SO I paint a portrait

of my confession wearing my clothes, a zipper
down the front of its body,
and before it I would kneel,
but my knees are shot to hell.
I once stood on the throat
of a promise and heard the strangled
phrase it whispered back. I am no
more.

A tree knows of nothing but narcissism.

   There.

Now this fact is a bone tied to a clothesline.

-Adam Clay (Past Simple)

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