Escaping Your Cast

You harvest my dead skin under your nails.

And I would fight and screech and climb walls.

You raised me in your image and neglected me.

Was this the way you treated women, seduced them?

By rendering them invisible, salivating on decapitated

Bodies? And you brought me here, hungry and thirsty.

Incomplete, I never ceased to claim my remedy from you.

 

Were you ashamed when you saw me for the first time?

How long did your affection last?

At what point did I make you despise me?

Was I able to speak?

Your revolt must have happened quickly.

I never comprehended who you were.

The whiplashing tongue.

 

The man who revels in his own tragedy.

Pretending to be the master of his insecurities.

Narcissistic theatrics, the face a shifting puzzle.

I can’t stand to look at you, those demanding eyes.

You overeat and it is my flesh. I didn’t know the size of my heart.

And you fuck them all and maybe I imitate them blindly.

I hunt you down in miniatures and try to run

Away from something that I carry in my own body.

“An Angel in green with a vielle” by Circle of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) / Francesco Napoletano (1470-1501)