HOW I REALLY FEEL by John Grey

I want you tell you this
but, on heart’s orders,
my tongue is grounded,

And the poem is unwritten
so don’t go looking through my papers.

My heart is the dictator of this body,
a tyrant who cracks down on freedom of speech,
where it feels it will do most self-harm.

That organ has also shunted my face
off into the neutral zone,
instructed my touch to lie low for a while,
give nothing away.

My heart’s one wish
is that there was a way to measure
keeping up the pretense
for the Guinness Book of Records,

Or taking silence to a level
where it registered an almighty outbreak
on some kind of reverse-seismograph.

We can go on as before.
My heart is not one for social distancing.
You can even bring up the word “commitment.”
Your heart, no doubt,
knows the meaning of the word.
Mine has a dictionary.
It tore out that page just in time.

Author Bio: John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Soundings East, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in West Trade Review, Willard and Maple and Connecticut River Review.