Admiration

What I admire in you

is the wheels within wheels

forever turning

all day

I could lay back and watch 

the action of the teeth

fitting together 

to set your friends

walking as puppets 

along the course of your will

because I thought 

I was the only one

with the bad habit

of manipulation.

They say that 

real love is when 

someone knows the truth of you

so why shouldn’t friendship be founded

on a slight equilibrium of wickedness

just a tilt 

towards the Florentine chancery

in a field of would-be saints

for me 

this feeling of recognition 

is like coming home

to a place of singular welcome

although I have been lucky enough 

to see myself 

in the mirror of someone else

a few times over the history of days

that is why I lie here smiling 

in the hollow spaces of the night, at 2am

counting myself lucky.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gear#/media/File:Storckensohn_cog_wheels.jpg