I am tired of honesty.
Its brown paper packaging
and string that unfolds at the slightest touch.
Impossible to ignore,
it lends the lowest actions
a likeable bareness,
offers the giver a vulnerability
that slips beneath the skin,
nuzzles the ear. Honesty seduces,
passes from lip to lip in reconciliation,
an aphrodisiac. We are all human,
all warm skin and sweat.
To reject the gift of the truth
is cruel and cold. And so we yield,
glow warmer with benevolence
as we welcome back the sinner.

But oh, how I long for lies
when the click-rattle of your keys at night
means only confession.
A brown paper parcel between us
on the silence of the table.
Honesty is quiet, it makes my head ache,
makes me wish for sweet chords of deception,
for presents wrapped in gold paper,
tied elaborately with lies.
Spontaneous bunches of flowers
hiding what is best left unsaid.
To know that my surrender
was in ignorance, that it smelled of roses
instead of beer.