Inhale.

I could wax poetic
About how time flies
I'd write you a poem 
Stuffed with decadent lies

 Doubtless it would rhyme
And mimic Dr. Seuss
It would sound like a song
And taste like an excuse

 But what would be the point?
 
These words are a seeping syrup
That varnishes each limb
They coat your lips in sucrose
Tasting of
Crystalized intelligence
And honeyed pretense

These words of wisdom
Are painful in their misuse
A mouthful of vestigial syllables
That must be plucked
Like the superfluous denticles of youth

These words become 
An invasive species
Endangering our native thoughts.
Choking vines, they creep
They cut off all circulation.

These words, a lush bouquet
Lavished upon a dead man
He spends them like dimes
Hoards them like gold;
Guilt speaks more
Than love ever could

What if I just stopped?

 And left a gaping hole
A no-man's-land of diction
Devoid of respiration
Would you fill it to the brim
With your platitudes?

I’ll tell you what:
Let’s go see a play.
We know all the words
That we never say

 But I choose to hear instead
The words that go unsaid.

 They find me
In the space between
Each breath

For ours is a pregnant pause

 Exhale.