ohladybegood
this time i cheated.
i will change for you: i will spread myself inside out
until you can see the muscle and bones and blood of me,
until you can take the taught leather skin and wrap it around
your purses,
your wallets,
your shoes.
wear me, wear me--
let me inhabit you, let me wrap myself around you,
let me feed you, oh be hungry,
shove me into your mouth in too-big bites,
yes, yes, eat with your hands,
eat without chewing, eat without breathing,
let me choke you,
let me hurt on the way down.
and when the end comes,
when your vision becomes blurry,
when the light grows bright and the darkness comes,
I will be the blood rushing to your ears.
I will be weight in your stomach, dropping,
dropping, oh you are so afraid and I am that fear.
I am the last thoughts, the clawing breaths, the gasping for life,
I am the yearning I am the aching I am the desperation I am I am I am I am I am I am.
And until then, fold me into even fourths and put me in your pocket.
Drop me like pennies into your piggybank:
forget me among the scattered papers on your desk.
I will be the same word, typed over and over,
read until it becomes strange and grotesque,
foreign and complex,
(oh be hungry)
understood but unaccepted, yes.
(molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly molly)
read me, read me, read me.
Can’t you see I’m nothing if unread?
orange, red, brown. and the grooves: long and narrow. just wide enough for water to slip through them and hang off the roof like limp fingers. these were the tiles my father went to buy, his keys dangling on their chain off his ring finger; these were the tiles he died for.
we never put them up. i wonder if this is kindness or cruelty.