you're living with your pain
wherever you go
you keep smuggling it
under all those dirty shirts
and half-empty bottles of cheap painkillers
in your battered suitcase
through the country of your life
and still have the guts to say,
'Nothing To Declare'
when the Love Police stops you
at the heart's border line
and you hold your breath
in order to keep
the tacked and patchworked
pump of yours
from bursting
when they question
its wholeness

too afraid to feel it
too bold to show it
you keep claiming
no sentimental and emotional
baggage whatsoever