Unintoned

Unintoned

Now and then words come stumbling out,
over the tongue and teeth, past the lips,
free-falling like battle-leafs, grumbling from
sleepless eyestrain and prickliness,
crumbling on the floor

Of the hearts of those we truly love the best.

One word begins the barrage in hope of
a white flag waved,
and then the same word, a different word (same meaning),
a longer sentence (the same sentence twice removed),
then adding decibels to repetition our original mission
lies forgotten in the war room, while we resume our
insistence over again.

What often is worse, then and again, is the terse expectation that
our foe, our love, feels the verses we see, sees the worth we feel
and will nod vigorously at the first word of our hurt and trouble.

Trouble is we presume too much, and the words double back
upon themselves in the vacuum of assumption. What we knew
to be
conspicuous
is merely a
contagious
brew of emotions times themselves.

Let me start over, I mean ages ago,
so
I can bundle my words only once
with bows and ribbon
and leave my insistence in the bag
to crumble unseen, unsown, solo and
unintoned: noted.