Taste Test Poem by Maya Hanson

I've shivered too much in what I thought was summer
to learn about the streetlights I've never seen
But I can't live life through descriptions
when you give me the world in vinegar

I'm stepping to the beat of the song only you hear
and shallow can still break even if we just whisper
Stop treading on these slippery shoes I call home
This is your gift and I will force it down

I've listened to evil but never seen it work
never seen the crude yellow lights beaming from its lies
and you spoke to me in cheap illumination
I couldn't grasp with hands that won't bend

Spending years at your table, now I'm going still
My hands know the wood of this bench too well
I've sat and memorized patterns, apples and silver spoons
This is my memory and it will never suffice

With just these senses I can't build a real existence
I'll swallow your salty words but my sad eyes never cry
With you I'll live dead for the rest of my life
So I slash through the memory to build a new wall

Now my blood knows mercy at the hand of these poisons
But even as I flicker I know this is just the taste test,
I know the cold unforgiving steel of that silver spoon-
trust me, I won't take the same deadly offerings from him.