They remark at our silence.

I love the way we writhe under the sheets of a thirteenth century rhythm. With our interlocking fingers we constrict the rhymes out of the tight throats of young men suffering from plague. I adore our capacity to be void of pleasure while pushing each other's mouths wider with our mechanical tongues. I know and I know you do too. We're exempt of intimacy while we fuck each other's brains out. The dirge blithely presses us together. We hardly speak. We hardly feel. We hardly know what it's like to be satisfied but we press and pull and sigh for theatrical effect.

We live in feigned recognition of a sensitive falsehood that will reunite us again. We are mere acquaintances.

Lips and lies and lamentation
Sneers and sighs of resignation
We're nowhere but we never were,

So it's okay – we're tempted to say but our lips only part for each other when they meet under the sheets of a thirteenth century rhythm. The young chamber men still sing when we meet because they see we lack compassion and empathy for one another. We breathe a disease into each other: the living essence of hypocrisy. You part your lips to sing an empty tune but cut yourself short before the sound scorches the air.

As long as we're mute I won't feel and you won't break my heart. So let's touch again. Leave the song. Leave the love somewhere else and let's make empty noise.