I talk to you sometimes,
and make you say the dumbest things,
things that you would never say,
because every time I make you say

the sort of things that you
would say, you say the things
you always did, and that’s not
what I need from you. Now,

I just make you give me what I never
asked you for. You pull your arm tight
across my clavicle, put your own
hand on my heart and say to me, Stop.

(first feat. in Pickle Press Poetry)