Hunting Grounds

I saw you today & froze
with that-deer in the headlights
of a speeding car-stare.

You didn’t see me, so it wasn’t
permanent, although the scars
threatened to reopen & fester
at the mere thought of you.

I look at you & want to play
a game of hopscotch in oncoming traffic.
I’m hoping to change that soon.
I hear freeze tag is a better alternative.

It hurts less when you’re sent careening
through the air smashing into things
like speed limit signs or mile markers
than the reality that you’ve moved
on & we’re through.

I want to terraform the landscape
of your heart, which as of yet remains
unsuitable for any long-term growth.

I know the future makes the past
seem vaguely familiar, but
I don’t want to be a carcinogen
to your pulmonary functions any longer.

We lost quite a bit in the last one
it still feels like today’s news,
but that’s just me reading too much
into the situation again.

Feelings always were optional for you
while mine were free for the taking.

I don’t know how to try anymore.
It ends up being a ten-car pileup
during a blinding snowstorm.

Won’t it be the same as last time?

Remember calling me an asshole
in front of that bar full of strangers?

They believed everything you told
them, although I must admit you
did put on quite the performance.

I wish it had gone differently.

I would’ve conceded that you were right
-I was being an asshole-
that you were justified
in all your anger
& we would’ve gone on
with the night still believing
we were meant for each other.

It went differently as you know
& I’m left with the tapestry
of what was left unsaid, undone
by our silence.

We never cleared the air between us
the only oxygen in the room turning toxic
poisoning any future civilizations that may
have come from all those sleepless nights
& endless conversations into the wee
hours of the morning.

You needed more, I offered less.
Then you gave me less when I needed more.

You sat on the kitchen floor crying
head in hands, our unwillingness
to change an apparition that haunts
us both to this day.

What was so important that we
undressed each other so completely,
dismantling the very fabric of what
brought us together in the first place?

I would’ve crossed continents to see you
weathering different time zones,
you being the one truth left to die in me.

In the end, we were left with knuckles
scraped clean to the bone
and us both worse for the wear.

You & I,
both predator & prey
drawn to the same body of water
on the Saharan plains

an unlikely alliance
a shaky truce
but for a moment
then
incisor to throat muscle
arterial tears geyser red
separating sinew from bone.

You can’t blame the lioness
for being a lioness.

Her nature cannot be denied.
She must hunt.
She must feed.
She must mate.
Hunt. Feed. Mate. Repeat.

Modern Absurdity, the newest collection of poetry by Joseph Fulkerson, is comprised of previously unpublished poetry, selections from out of print small press chapbooks, and a new and revised edition of Snout Chasing Tail.

Joseph Fulkerson runs Laughing Ronin Press and is the author of sixteen books and chapbooks. East Jesus Nowhere was released by Anxiety Press.