My scars don't look like
Anyone else's-
They're more careful,
Organized, precise and
Exact.
Not light, but
Never deep enough
Never deep enough
Never deep enough
Never deep enough.

People always ask why
I do such pretty patterns:
Because this is the only thing in life
That I can really control
Control
Control,

And I find it so beautiful-
Though, not so much tragic.

My scars are not chaotic like a
Car-wreck,
They are consistent like a
Coma-
Proof that I was awake
The whole time I was sleeping,
And I could feel everything
Even though I could tell no one.
No one.

That this
Unconscious obsessive compulsion
Demands order
Order
Order, it
Insists by instinct,
An intricate simplicity.

Still, I will 'ever envy
Those stitched gashes, once
Gushing
Gushing
Gushing with surrender and
Serenity...
Each raised and rough coarse collagen fiber
To form a white flag
Forever etched in flesh;
To tell the world
They, were a slave to freedom-

I am only a slave
To *myself.

They lay on Normandy.
Two hundred miles away, the empty shells of humans
Who lie below the streets
Felt the poison that lurked above.

They shuffled out of the underground,
Boarding trains and ships like corpses
And dropping bombs from miles above.

A little French boy is spared.
His brother whispers “Bon courage,”
As the rest of the family are taken out back
And shot like mad dogs.

Twenty years later, he stands on the beach
With his young wife
Watching their sons roll and play in the sand.

His tongue tastes a warm salt
That couldn't come from the ocean.
All he can taste from the ocean is blood.

I can see my grandfather clearly
With tears falling down his face
As his mother shuts the piano.
“There will be no music,” she says quietly.

She is an immigrant
And I wonder if she questions the choice
That brought her son to a country where he might lay down his life
For strangers, four thousand miles away.

I can feel him now
Hiding in the apple trees,
High above the others.
He is in Sainte-Mère-Église, and there are enemies below.

And now I take them in my arms
Cradling them like children
“Je vous embrasse, les deux,”
And I lie down on the edge of the ocean at Normandy.

I exhale and hold them close.
The sun is shining, and I do not cry;
It is nothing but salt and water to me.

in a cluster
of trees
beneath fingers
of sunlight
a forgotten
cemetery
lies decrepit
beside an old
back road
named after
an indian tribe

most people
are afraid
of being
forgotten
but i wish
to be buried
in the
forgotten
cemetery
surrounded by
crooked stakes
of rusted
wraught iron
engulfed by ivy

and i wish
to let the
earth
consume me
oncemore

this is a poem about how you sleep,
how your body grew cold like a corpse in a mortuary.
how it felt wrong to reach out and touch you.
did you know that you turned away from me
every time i tried to face you?
did you do it on purpose?
maybe you were afraid i would be able to see
you were dreaming of her,
that i would read it on your face.
lines by your mouth like obituary,
like roadmap, her bedroom,
the destination, mine, a pitstop.
loving you was like attending a funeral service for myself
and sitting in the front row. no.
loving you was like watching you pick out a casket
and call it practice. ****.
i know how sensitive you are about death.
i know it still hurts.
i know how everything hurts.
i am sorry for just being another thing that hurts.
i think i'm afraid to let you forget that you used to want me.
like if i can somehow dig deep enough,
wound you into remembering me.
i keep weapons-grade nostalgia in my back pocket
for the days i can feel myself slipping from your consciousness.  
i was born with scar tissue where skin should've been.
but this isn't about me.
this is about the way you sleep
like you're waiting for someone to close the lid,
cover you in dirt, and read a psalm.
this is about the way i tried to sing your pieces back together,
and the way my voice gives out
when i read the things you write for anyone other than me.
lover, friend, stranger,
i just wanted to show you how to love your darker parts.
i never meant to become one.
i am so ******* selfish.
but i swear i am trying to unlearn the steps.
and you used to think my two left feet were charming.
i am out of time in more ways than one.
i keep stepping on your toes.
i can't seem to stop tripping you up,
hoping that you'll fall back into whatever this was.

- m.f.