My heels bite the pavement,
the cadence of Monday through Friday;
My shoulders are stressed
In spite of ergonomics.
The strangers who pass me,
eyes glossed with similar fatigue,
beat a shuffling rhythm:
the melody hypnotizes.

That's why I don't notice.
Walking just the same,
a pace not unlike the teller
or the lawyer in front of me.
They speak of a repast,
old haunts, new places,
television and sports.
Another measure, no sign of caesura.

When I find myself unsure,
uncertain of the cool ground beneath,
of the muffled grumblings
and the scrapes on my knees,
it feels like a dream.
“I'll wake up soon, I'm at home.
I've fallen asleep to the T.V.,
a wacky dream bred from the same.”
The breath on my neck is so hot.

Once my head straightens up,
the world once again standing still before me,
the weight against my body multiplies.
The floating sensation of sleep,
The feeling of a shell within a shell,
It dissipates and my insides are knots,
molten lava, churning against its crust
and my skin screams in tune.

The grunting and the pawing,
brusque lips are sinking ships.
There's not enough sandpaper
in the world to compare.
Those heels are dust,
their teeth broken and rotted;
Percussion takes a rest.

I am trapped inside my clothes.
Twisted like a snake around my body,
I want only to be free of them--
in any other situation but.
“Here let me help you with that.”
The words slither, covered in mold.
My every wish in that single moment
Answered, a betrayal; trite axioms abound.

Suddenly the weight lifts, is suspended,
a chance accorded to a plain old girl.
But my limbs are heavy, fear looms,
Justifications swarm my panicked mind.
“Don't be stupid. Give them what they want;
They'll leave you alone. Go to another place.
Return with some piece of mind:
no matter how fractured your body, you heal.”

But there's a light on overhead.
The unmasked man stares lustfully at my lips.
His uncharted groping is fervent, fearless--
his desire to be soon bestowed upon him.
Consequences do not glaze his feverish eyes,
and worry lies dormant, sets off no warnings.
The cage was set, the trap precisely executed
and there's no spoon to help me out of here.

How does time fold itself,
accordion-style,
into the back pocket of a southern Baptist pew?
How do two moments
end up back-to-back
when miles & years spread them thin?

Maybe I am asking the wrong questions.

What does my heart mean to you?
Raw, staining the palm of your hand;
how much will it get you at barter?
When you trade our stories,
who will prove the hero?
When that saint is buried,
the past dug up, and
when your breath comes ragged
like wind-shred clouds in the still-cold sun,
is it possible time will match up for the briefest of moments?
What does our memory look like,
crystallized in regret?
Would you recognize it?
Because I would fall for you again.

I don't just want to be made;
I want to be remade by you.
I want to be unrecognizable
with a peculiar smile,
explosive, unexpected:
a candid spark of that secret pleasure.
I want to be all nerves,
desperate, shivering, raw
in the melted snow, exposed
and thawed, rubber warm
and oddly pleasing.
I want sliding eyes, electric;
I want words unspoken
felt like a steady, patient pulse.
I want the candles on the
grocery store shelves to leave
me briefly possessed by memory:
a kiss on the cheek like a habit in a hurry,
an instant frozen in time.
I want to stop breathing
so you have to remind me:
I want my heart, in syncopation,
to skip its beats and leap for yours.

Your toes, a careless addition
to your bare feet, mystify me:
that they can be so nonchalant
and graceless in such miraculous proximity.
All of it is perplexing;
all of it burns like the courage of a vigilante;
And I want to be devoured.

I want to tear open my insides,
let you read my intestines like tea leaves,
see the tumbling of my thoughts
& the hidden, quiet promises
my heart hums as it is set on fire.

I want to photograph that moment
when the flames lick my flesh,
igniting memories, passion, desire
& eating, too, evidence of past pulses;
rhythms erased in the fire of my desperation.

I want to show you a heart, newly formed,
bright red, wet, and yours forever.

I am going to be a strict machine;
Amongst screws and bolts will be the blood of me.
With some twists and turns that carry through,
I will take control of all you knew.

For a head I will have a bowling ball,
A fixture so round, smooth, opaque, and small;
Holes to carry me, sleek surface to move,
A variable mass with headstrong dreams to prove.

My eyes will hold all to be seen around
That counts for more than even sky or ground,
Than sun or rain, than death or life:
Than pleasure and pain balanced with strife.

I'll elect to locate naught for an ear
To replace with silence the sounds of fear.
Instead I shall have a decorative lace
For all the good  it would do in its place.

Holding my innards will be a strong steel,
A robust cage built to withstand repeal.
It won't buckle nor bruise, fracture nor fall;
Its strength shall prove aspiration for all.

My foundation, the base on which I stand
Shall be something springy for when I land.
Smoothly mobile and long in stride,
They alone will be the source of my pride.

Discarded and buried, left to rot
Are all the scars and wounds you wrought.
Pieces spoiled,  marred beyond reason
I surrender to yield life in another season.

If I could, I would unbutton
every cell in my body;
spread them out,
indexed and cataloged
for an easier read.

All of my secrets,
my dreams and quirks,
and the chemicals behind each action
laid in array for you
to decipher as you would.

When you had finished,
I would button each one
back into position;
one beneath the other,
snapped back together.

Then my secrets would be yours.

Stop showing
You love me
A little at a time.

Stop saying
You care
Bit by bit.

Stop keeping
Me here
For tiny pieces of time.

Because I need
All of you
Not piece by piece.

I love
All of you
Not just some parts of you.

So love all of me
All the way
All the time.

Or let all of me go
All at once
For good.