you told me in the most casual of voices
that violence is a private thing
something that prohibits interference
as if it were an act of intimacy
of attraction between a man and a woman
you say that to me with a baby in your arms
*
I look at your smirking face
and wonder
how long it will take
*
your mother keeps you close
because she put her broken life
inside of you
*
holding on to it
holding on to you
*
and she wails cancerously
within her false mouth
and theatrical throat
*
talks her way out of her inhumanness
that sickens me
baffles me
all she sees is death
not those closest to her
and she talks and talks
and never feels a thing
I
s t o p p e d
l i s t e n i n g
*
death is an unfelt spectacle
a tour de force,
performance for her
take in my pain and suffering
numbed herself a long time ago
screeching amidst the collective emptiness
matte tries to shine
*
when you open your mouth
I can’t feel a thing
*
she rocks her infant
and trivialises the violence that gave birth to her
and how can that ever be a bad thing
Croque-Melpomene 