Gem

She worships me, she says.

I can walk on water.
I can throw a baseball
over a hundred miles an hour.
I can speak six languages,
and read a dozen more.
I proved Fermat's Last Theorem,
but my proof was too long,
so I tossed it away.
I can build a log cabin in a day,
and tear it down the next.
The presidents of our day
rely on me for foreign policy advice.
I can go from zero to sixty in
four point eight seconds.
And I can take my love's hands
in mine and make her pulse race
by sheer force of will.

Have I mentioned?
She worships me, she says.

So (you may ask) why
does she fasten my limbs down,
and pass her fingers
so dangerously across my face
that I can feel the ridges of
her fingerprints on the tip
of my nose?
Tighten her grip and play
red light...
green light...
with my lungs?
Make me close my eyes and
shake my head in dread
at the things she will
convince me to do?
Wrap me up, fool my eyes,
and hold me in so tight
that she can reach her hand
inside my head and
twist my mind around?

At last, all I have left is my
whisper (and I whisper,
if you really ask why,
then you must be seeing
a contradiction in terms,
and I don't,
and you mustn't).