in translation

by GS Jackson

A word I say is a word you don’t understand
A touch I make is a stroke that you don’t sense
And the life I want for you is the life I do not yet have
You hate, I love
I take, you give
I apologize, you do not excuse I find the synonym, you place the antonym
We live in a place of words that are married to emotions that have no home
People who throw bodies together in intercourse to be divorced of intimacy
A friendship that gives to only be bankrupt in misunderstanding
Tape and paste, stockpile and waste
Cost and vex, masturbation to sex
Life and death, circumstance and self-mutilation
And sadly, we are lost