your body, skin, dough before the ovenheat
grows around me, obscene,
accumulation, tiptoeing, obsolete,
I bruise inside, look down, look down,
he hardens as I melt
my heart beating against his body
against the fragrance of this foul intimacy
that robs me of my vocabulary
*
I could imagine his carcass all too well
I saw it in his eyes
his hands
as he approached my body
with the nightmares in his head
*
I touched myself
because you couldn’t
*
harm l e s s
*
and I learned that
only if I became a spectacle
I’d get the applause
the affection
stepping into the shoes laid out for me
*
I put a smile on men’s faces
men-pleaser
girltease
but when I did it in public
they’d send me to my room
as if they had nothing to do with me
a s i f
*
death taught me
where to find the rot
*
sleep held me like a sarcophagus
pretence begged memory to bury every single night
*
seeking me out with my eyes closed
and I’d stop hearing the applause
the stage is set
*
and I dream of that house
again and again
the rooms that I buried my selves in
Croque-Melpomene 