Does it count when she changed her mind at the last moment
that she whimpered no over and over, but you couldn't here over the slapping of skin on skin.

He says "Don't tell anyone,
he says, people don't want to hear poems about things like **** and death and the ugly."

But why, it is the wrenching truth?

No one wants to hear about another woman's body being violated
they say, "It happens all the time, you were asking for it."

Does it count that he had a girlfriend?
When he pinned her on her stomach with arms over her head
forcing the innocent from her body, slapping used on her forehead so she felt like a piece of trash

Does it count when she took months to tell her mom why the lights had shut off in her eyes?
When she couldn't look her dad in the eye because she was so ashamed,
when she retracted from the slightest touch.

Does it still count?

Silence

A pain ****** my left arm
and I open my eyes

I am lying
in a wasteland,
wasting away

A vulture's beak presses
deep into a mangled flesh wound
made above
my right pectoral muscle

I feel the eyes
of the vulture,
staring into me,
and I feel connected
to it

I think,
if this is the end
of everything,
then I suppose
it's not the worst
way to go

The vulture picks at me,
cleaning my innards
with it's bloodied beak
I feel nothing
Nothing inside me,
nothing beyond
me to envision

These days
are silent,
albeit my screaming voice,
and I wonder
if the atmosphere
trembles subtly
while my lungs
collapse

Light is only in my eyes
reflected by the memories
I'd walked through
in my years,
and the trees
that line
my path
bend
I break

There is little solace
in this heavy heart
knowing it has been beaten
and beating
for something
more
With the vulture
having emptied
my decomposing body,
we fly

Kindness glides about my house.
Dame Kindness, she is so nice!
The blue and red jewels of her rings smoke
In the windows, the mirrors
Are filling with smiles.

What is so real as the cry of a child?
A rabbit's cry may be wilder
But it has no soul.
Sugar can cure everything, so Kindness says.
Sugar is a necessary fluid,

Its crystals a little poultice.
O kindness, kindness
Sweetly picking up pieces!
My Japanese silks, desperate butterflies,
May be pinned any minute, anesthetized.

And here you come, with a cup of tea
Wreathed in steam.
The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.
You hand me two children, two roses.