everywhere, in the hairs on my head and of my body.
In my nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, stomach, bowels, mesentery, and excrement. I miss you.
Your absence floats in my bile, my phlegm, my pus, blood, sweat, lymph, tears and saliva.
I miss you. In the oil of my joints. When I am walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, awakening.
I hear you. I am speaking of you. I am kept silent by you. This tomb of the soul, this food for worms, this glorious, sufferer from Dark Gods. “Love you? I am you.”
George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Havana Times, South China Morning Post, The Buffalo News, and more.
See all his poems on Tea House here.