subtext

he wants the noise in his head

to stop the constant retellings

the ham-fisted recitation

of all that could be wrong

with meaning and the pervasive

recriminations for every action

and inaction for each word

and silence he did or could

have said combined with the

possible scripts in all the

manifestations of possible

conversations until he

drowns in the thickened

ooze of others’ words like

sea birds bathed in oil flounder

on jagged rocks unable to fly