Cognitive dissonance

by Sara Fitzpatrick Comito

telephone sounds like ghost chains dragging
the buzzer to the outside a constant nag of
where else you should be

I’m nothing til you look at me
that Morphine refrain
and there’s no one ringing

and someone you really want
knowing they never will
show  – the competition
speak in platitudes like
over Iceland pixy redheads
must ballet in collusion with
something you could never
have any idea about

and how have you been left so alone?
along with the cooking smells
from your what you felt needed
to be done at that time of the night

whatever keeps you from looking
out the window for someone who
will never come. And it makes you want
them more and it makes you want to
put their picture in a cauldron with
something venomous like a smear

of lipstick that once allured, a dragon
if you had one. What can you put batteries
into to do your bidding and what is it
anyway? You want him here you want
him dead. And you’ve never been more turned on.