baptism recurs as trauma, angels watch me
seize
i have begun to pray again
i may feel cold but i am so warm
in my throat and bones, i have a fever
by the time my vagus nerve grew up my lungs were so full i found it impossible to scream
give me love without evasion and equivocation.
no one will just speak to me anymore

i saw you in a photograph
smiling like someone trying to be happy
i am not sorry for you

I see her and air is snuffed
Out of my lungs in one swift
Swoop, my usually perceptive
Mind is a hodgepodge of disarray.
Speech is caught in the labyrinth
That’s my voice box choked from
All sides, an irredeemable hostage.
I stare long and hard at her eyes
Then I realize, her eyes aren’t
Ordinary, they’re a canvas on
Which the Milky Way galaxy is
Exquisitely captured. It’s this
Precise moment that a shrill
Mention of my name jolts
Me to wakefulness, and well
My heart’s a pitiful husk
After being exposed to two opposite
Extremes of emotional excitement.

Chocolate ecstasy on my tongue is
melting my troubles away