Emissions Your fire is lit and pollution emits—billowing bi-product from atop smokestack trails upward into untamed sky. Stifled, you stumble on your own exhaust. Factory fumes of poisoned perception engulf your expression. Built-up mighty and resistant, yet engineered to keep your distance, with concrete exterior and smut-blackened insides brushed raw with thirst. Emotion exudes slight in painful puffs—a stuttering sphincter. Burn-away blinks and putting mask to face, you’re not the heavy industry you seem to be. Lifting my mask, I offer a blown kiss that bumps through haze to anoint. Breakthrough sweeps across your facade and my palms stretch out to dustpan the molten mess. The sting in your eyes is not contamination this time. Saline repression drizzles out lash and corner, dilutes perspiration on nose and lip, slides recklessly until dripped and caught with fingertip. In smoldering digress; lack of reaction draws you in, coaxes and calms. Belched up from a pot-bellied stove, your gibberish relaxes. Rage, spit, and sputter turn to ashes, then float, and rest beside me as words.
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