Magnetism

measured in tea cups
you're pouring me out again
letting me swirl away down the drain
into the pipe world of sewers
that you're always dreaming about

folding me up like a page from a book
origami cranes are all you make of me
but watch me fly around your head until you're dizzy
to fall over in sideways views
of TVs and telephone poles

I'm the guitar and you're the strings
but somehow I'm the one playing you
with notes all garbled into a mangled melody
that sounds like all your emotions crying at once

shuffle me like a deck of cards
and use me for magic tricks
I like to make you look foolish

my clock out-ticks yours
though our tocking's the same,
as our pendulums want nothing
but to collide with each other
even as we fight such gravitational tendencies

your streets and my sidewalks
are separated by strips of grass
but my bicycles still get
run over by your cars

tell me your story so I can write it down
I want to keep you in pages
and a neat Times New Roman font
so I can peruse you at my leisure

taped together like something broken
our feelings still manage to elude each other