Just Spit It Out by Connie Johnson

You.

Me.

And your opinion.

Have become an unholy 3-way

And I’m waiting for you to pry my name

Out of your mouth.

Skeletons rattling around in your brain

Can they come out and play?

A fistful of he said/she said and it’s no wonder that all

Your unasked questions pose such a shaky proposition. 

(Why am I so intoxicated in your embrace?

My name, something you want to drag

Ghosts clambering onto your back for leverage

Incessant tongue work is what you should call it  

And I don’t think you can even read me right

Without a little 20/20 hindsight.

Like many a sage or street corner philosopher

Who know what it’s like to be misquoted, I started out speaking

In a foreign tongue. It would be rude to switch up now.

Words from a fever dream, flickeringly specific

All your hand held mirrors so one-sided. Your reflection

Scaring off what feel like haints in the house. And every time

You talk to yourself (“you’re just talking to yourself”

You mention my name.

Connie Johnson is a Los Angeles, California-based poet whose work has appeared  or will be forthcoming in Iconoclast, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Jerry Jazz Musician, Voicemail Poems, Misfit Magazine, Exit 13 and Mudfish.