Gideon Reed

Years ago, when I was the kind of person who recorded my life in the form of poetry, I hurt a friend's feelings with the sonnet below. It was a description of our relationship and, unfortunately, I chose a pretty disgusting metaphor. Not flattering at all. Don't read too much into this poem. All it's about is the fact that some people are so open and confiding that they almost scare you off. Or something like that.

For each the blister of his confidence
Has diff’rently enduring skin, some tough
To pierce, some sweating pus; too deep to lance
The first, the other not quite deep enough.
One of these last stood brimming to explode;
My nudge enloosed a deluge of regret,
Dead tissue sloughing forth, all waiting to unload
Old venom on the first new flesh it met.
The friction of two selves create such welts:
The bruis’d but clinging reed, against the great
Horn-blowing Gideon flashing battle-pelts.
The lancer, I spread on the salve of faith,
But even that in pus (still unexhausted) melts,
And from my hand his wart calls out a mate.