I am tempted by stories.
There is more than once
upon a time
in me.
My hang-up is really
a gangway toward
fiction: I am doubtful
about the narrative's park,
a field where dreams
eventually come true
or don't.
The pro and the contraction
simplify the action
and make an otherwise inedible root
as delicious as a bowl full of sugar.
But I want to cook the nearly poisonous
and end up with the confusingly toxic.
Not mere scary spice, mind you.
I want the taste that will make you
look thrice, first in the mirror,
then across the stoop,
and finally,
into the eyes
of the part of you
that you thought died forever
by suicide
all those years ago.
Roman Ryan 