subtext

You ask another question

to control what I have

to say, in a mannered

way; for to be impolite,

would be to cede some

small slice of doubt

into the staid provenance

of your steady gaze.

If honest, I simply must

sidestep your thrust,

move past the assumption

targeted toward my heart,

and answer with a word

so clean it slides through

your emptiness to excise

all of you in me I despise.