DENIAL

Since I'd seen you last, you said

you'd grown

gradually blinder 

and blinder

to the wonder 

of rising and 

setting suns. 

Then, you said you started

to smell things

a lot more intensely

than you heard them

(which was alright, since, 

on an absolute scale,

intensity was 

the same as pleasure)

and that 

the tang of renunciation—which tasted,

you said,

like sterilized metal,

both

mundane 

and super-

natural—

started feeling strange-

ly second

nature in your mouth.

Eventually, 

something 

even more obscure failed you,

but it didn't matter,

since you no longer 

depended upon it.

You said—

you couldn't

put your finger on it.

You said—

you could only 

call  it—

specificity.