(What if no one’s the killer & no ones the martyr?)

he always talked to me
like I was a word problem:
he furrowed his brow and
looked 100 years older than me
but didn’t leave any more
of an impression than that.
he was an egoist with a small penis
and he licked my face sometimes
when he finished.
that’s when I left

I thought about screwing the entire community
to get them off my fucking back
but the way you touch me
feels less tenuous,
spacious like breath,
like lungs rising from their skin cocoon,
a lot like late June
before the heat hangs us
with her relentless swarm
so I keep my gaze towards you.

we used to talk about my feelings a lot
but I could tell it bothered him
when I brought up the fear of pedophilia:
but you can’t tell some of them are 17:
not the way they move when they run,
shirts off, they could be
20
21.
I’m a creep too.
like a sale on day old bread:
fifty cents is not a lot
and  I just want it all.

he always said “interesting”
after everything I said.
I was a loony tune caught in the moon
pretending to love his censorious stature,
but really when we fucked
I just thought of those young men
arms wrapped around me,
tongues on my neck,
18 and over.

the more I remember
the more the whole thing seemed like a poorly written rough draft
and I just kept waiting for the twist,
the prize behind Door Number Three
that turned out to be a supernatural force that drove me
to contrived madness
and I just ended up feeling bad about everything I ever said
to them.

silence is astounding
and I filled it with talking spaces,
unfinished business.
he called my sadness “savage”
when I ate my own heart during the famine
but it was better than doing a rain dance
with our shriveled. cowering tongues out
and no gray in sight.

in my defense, judge,
I didn’t know the bitch was coming back
to dig up her brother.
those little siamese cats
what a bloody, noisy mess.
had I known that;
how loud it would be,
the squeal, the cry at the first
touch

I would have started by ripping
out the larynx.

“the hush”

you’re something else.

something that can’t hang around
but also can’t spell
retreat without a
book being forced
in your face.

I’m a thesaurus, and I’m
suddenly panting
like an exiled Arabian
falling in love with every mirage
that promises water,
mouth as cup,
swift recompense for the previous harms
done by your
fathers.

we’re meeting in the middle
of a wide abyss that I picked,
and the first thing you want to
know is:
how did you get here,
and where do you really live?
and I want to know if you
brought any food and
why you ever let someone you don’t
know in.
you are unphased by the red veins
in the clouds, and the way they clap
black as my mood shifts,
the exes in my eyes,
the way the night moves out of my
way every time I step outside
to greet the twilight,
the portending moon,
and I am hoping we can
finally talk about the way it
felt when we left it up to
God.

just so you know,
I begin,
the greatest trick the devil ever played
was herself, and she’s the only one
listening to your
impetuous cries
tonight.

“the emergence”