and right after she says, i’m thinking of her, are you thinking of her and i said, i never think of her at all, and she frowns in the dark ad stiffens against me, i don’t believe you, i don’t believe you, and i try to smell her, i try to bring her back to me, and i feel her leave me in the dark even if she doesn’t move, i feel her leaving and i want to try to convince her but i can’t, i’ve told all that i have to say, all of it and i cannot bear to repeat any of it again

breaking broken i take all pleasure from this from my pain from the act of bleeding i am alive i break the skin and there release something i’ve seen before something i need to see again there me in the mirror whole and unblemished maybe a child maybe an angel unsoiled and free of all my mistakes all free of the haunting the weight of these years that have thickened the skin to cut through all that all my bullshit cut through the caked over and hardened lies and scars cut open the skin over and over again until i finally feel the need to heal

i dream and spit and howl until i can no longer dream but the bugs come out from under the chin, explode across my mouth and she asks me if i’m doing it all over again and i say no and she fingers the catepillars across my eyes and makes me swear i’m not lying and i tremble with rage because i deserve far worse than this, this doesn’t come even close enough

all things come out of the dark, slithery things without spines but slick. things that bump up against your heel and your ankle and climb gingerly up your leg with sharp little teeth that you would barely notice if they were not so quick and warm and wet.
and bigger things come out of the dark reared up on hind legs that bend in the opposite direction with their tongues pitched out and draped over their shoulders flicking this way and that swatting out the light from your eyes, tasting your tears.
and here we were with night lights and door locks and bed covers and silver knobs and crucifixes but we did nothing about the closets or the radiators, we never thought something so terrible could fit into the pipes, could escape through the cracks of things.

someone says smile to take your picture and you turn to face the camera. you are not alone but you are the only one turning. and when the shutter snaps you are caught turning away from those that love you.

doing it again, on the porch, out in the world. chill but bearable, like all things. we get used to it. slower now, too much thought, just do it. the doing and the saying, nothing ever makes it to the page. the words get lost. no translation, just loss, total and complete. but there is a moment of clarity, a string that finds itself, threads through. hang on to that string, a life, a rope, keep it from being a noose.

two once into nothing. grains between the skin and the quick, nails parsed and rendered swollen into a thickness. had i dreamt, had i slept, the denial waking in the belly. and there on your knees you cannot face it. there on your hand you spit it out. roots of withered grass once green and heaving rough dry wads of knotted brown roots. i can spit it all out but changes nothing.

bricks and teeth. these things repeat. hands and thighs, like a cavalcade of hoofs pounding the earth. it bares repeating. jaws wide open until the tongue waggles into the wind. broken and bleeding, twice more, once over, not stopping. shudder and speaking, flail loose, frayed ends of fingers looking for a grasp. and the road, the night and a sun that yields no warmth.