you squeezed the air out of my memories
collected them with sharp fingernails
erected a ruined tower in a crisp crypt of wood
and lit the match that set my body on fire from afar
*
you unbutton the braid
daughter in men’s clothes
you disentangle body and language
and writings leak out of my pores
smelling of your ghosts
*
I stared at the house of death
my skins decaying in a bathtub
tears unrecovered in mummified water
left me here to degenerate
left me in your absent arms
your pointing fingers
clots of hair stuck in my throat
*
the colours of my father
boiled into the ends of my hair
I suffocate my hair in an upward gesture
I can never forget where my face came from
my body doesn’t speak its inner language
there are ghosts in my posture
*
my face stopped to matter
family men orphaned my body
women taught me to accentuate my decapitation
close-ups in hidden drawers
come out to play
a girl blown out of proportion
their faces in my parts
disembodied
take it as a compliment
my face witnesses what they are taking away
my face witnesses what is deformed to fit a fantasy
the heart wails let me come back
their open mouths are everywhere
hands on my parts
the only ones
that matter to commit their sins
and my jaw picks up my remains
Croque-Melpomene 