Heartside Out Poem by I.J. Benjamin

The asphalt is warm
and red
and I am happy
being normal,
sipping coffee
smiling
at girls
and they're smiling
back
in their normal
ways
with all the beauty of
their yellow teeth
and coffee drenched breath
and those thoughts
ideas and shapes-
frozen just like that
under roads,
under banks
under suits and under death
that's much worse than death
in a bottomless pit,
in a pit that ends
in my heart, just below
where the asphalt is cold,
and all is well