Shoot, But Don't Cut

Dancing before the black lens, I say,
"Follow me, if you want me today."
You oblige me; you grin so wide while
you chase and record my ready smile.

This tryst:
look at my mouth,
my silent film lips,
wide and full and dark: real.
This list:
you check things off,
my plain porcelain skin,
my jutting shoulder-bones.

This world:
staring, sepia,
eyes not green but grey,
my flaws bold in monochrome.
This girl:
the creature Me,
willing prisoner,
chained but singing in your heart.

I could be anyone, any of these things -
a gypsy with her fingers trapped in her rings,
a fortune-teller hiding beneath her veils.
"But nothing compares, love," you say. "It all pales."
I disagree, but I know you think it's true.
We turn off the camera and we ___ for a few.

- - - - -

(That ___ in the last line isn't necessarily supposed to signify anything vulgar. In fact, it isn't at all, really, because if it was I'd have no problem with coming right out and saying it. It's just supposed to kind of signify the missing time between when the camera was on and when it was switched off. I don't know why I felt like I had to explain that, but I did. Anyway, I apologize profusely for the shittiness of last night's poem, but it was written in the midst of late-night starvation, caffeine withdrawal, and other various nasty things. So, yeah, just don't read it. Maybe I'll find the effort to delete it at some point here. Okay, time for me to shut the fuck up already.)