don't go; tell me that the lights will change.

I learned this puzzle long before I ever learned the touch of a man.
The first mystery I solved with my hands.

At sixteen the solving was writ in my bones.
Here it lives on between the tissue of my fingers.
A metacarpal memory of every edge and face.
An oracle foretells a picture of a coloured cube
with all its sides succinct.

Amnesic when I think of you, of you, of you and you.
While the memory of this pattern transcends.
Every grope grab throttle and squeeze.
I read it in a book.
A phalanx never forgets and the answer is always here.
Our memories are not the same.
All the times I left and have been left and will leave again are gone and will go.
And this cube will see it's solved state ad infinitum while I work on the solution to you.

But a man is not a six sided shape.
And every one a new sequence of turns and slides to solve.
A button, a belt, a zipper.
left turn on the back face
ouch he says.
down turn on the front
and he moans.

An abscence of an answer. A means to an end.
I peel off the stickers and put them back on the right way.
I'm a cheater where it counts the most.
Everywhere.