The cheap apples you left behind
Sit on my altar
Untouched, soft and small.
Green as seasickness,
Malnourished from darkness,
Made up with gloss, hoping to dupe the eye.
A terminal optimist,
I pick one from the pile.
With my razor-sharp knife,
I pierce through thick wax,
A shield prolonging the mediocre life
Of this sickly organism.
As I rotate the fruit in my hands,
My palms become sticky, smothered in veneer,
The covering collapsing, melting.
The vulnerable exposed skin
Succumbs to my penetrating blade in the end.
A victim of my warm touch.
