Stamp Collector

We all collect little bits of bitterness,
tucked away in our scrapbooks,
to remind ourselves of what we are denied

Then is the time it comes tumbling out, haphazard
of the boxes that line the hall, the shelves grown too heavy,
the ghost under the bed
until the desire is gone, and only the mess remains.

Spit

You spit your soul onto faces like venom
your defensive mechanism, your vitriolic verbalisation.
You hope it, caustic and rotten,
will etch itself bloodily and brutal on their features,
sear scars burning into their skulls and their eyes and their minds—

That the festering heart of your being
Will disfigure in its wake and leave
its mark, bitter and virulent,
biting and acrimonious—

That throwing up yourself bare and vulnerable
Of all buried inside like such will seem a soft reminder
in its intrinsic memory—

That the display
might leave an impression.