Love Song from the Dawn of Time
Your most primal qualities turn my hands into fists,
shaggy orange hair, your sweet ape face.
A lever flips & I'm in my creature brain,
puffy red cheeks & green eyes. The real me
sits slumped in a chair & there's nothing he can do
to stop me. Lizards of the mind
breed in standing water. Every day I line up all the things
I love & give them names based on the dazzling
nature of their smiles. The mirror only shows the beast,
grunting about what he knows hurts most to hear.
Lost in the woods, there are two ways to save myself:
breathe the green of the trees & become more rooted
or scream my name & try to punch myself out.
Either way, I'm left alone
realizing that I wasn't what I wanted.
Nate Pritts is the author of Sensational Spectacular (forthcoming, BlazeVOX) as well as the chapbooks Winter Constellations (horse less) & Poems, Chiefly Descriptive of Various Birds & Flowers (forthcoming, Dusie). He is the editor of H_NGM_N, an online journal of poetry & poetics.