Poisoning the Milk

You don’t listen when I speak.

Too busy poisoning the milk

stirring toxic sweetness

into thick, creamy white.

I fiddle with worry beads

you serve poison

in a tall, perspiring glass.

Eyes framed with choppy lashes,

you blink gummily, carelessly

into your laptop screen.

I shriek for help

demand it, weep for it,

watching you load kettle corn

like manna into your mouth.

Apathy isn’t bitter but

rotting, blackening teeth

worming across tongues.

I drown in me, in you, in everything

while you sit sipping coladas

on the shore.

A tossed joke or two, flippant,

dismissive. Nothing more.

You glance at me, finally,

nowhere near what I need.

You scroll with two fingers down your keyboard mousepad.

I drink the milk.