with forceps and scissors
i open myself up
i incise parts of you
still lingering around
the sharp cuts are
methodical, swift -
the poetry is
messy, unrhymed.
with every snip,
i can feel you
leave me
in my lonesome
tiny, quiet life.
it makes me sad,
it makes me happy,
it makes me angry,
and then
i feel nothing
at all.
this apathy, i think
scares me
the most -
have i given you
everything,
after all?
i put this thought
back inside,
i slowly stitch myself
back,
seven of them
holding me together.
if it were possible,
i would like to sleep
for a long time.

goodness is not
an inherited trait
we were born to
learn violence
the soft animal
that breathes inside
hungers for the
clawing, the blood

goodness is not
an inherited trait
devoid of all emotions
we choose to survive
it might be a knife
to the back
or a bullet
in between eyes
but we all will choose
certain certainty

goodness is not
an inherited trait
we are awake at night
because
we close our eyes
when we get
too close to
the sun

they have taken my words
and minced them up
in front of me
this is a familiar hell
this oubliette, this hole
this ******* landfill
of words and words and
words have
lost meaning, lost color
as little by little
i am pulverized
to grain, to salt, to dust
over and over again
over and over again
over and over again

i would like to run away
far from the bogged down
existence i have made
sell my clothes, my hair
sell my words still
dipped in my blood
i’d use the money and
board a train, a ship, a plane
**** it, i’ll move to an island
everywhere’s an island
if i tell no one where i am

show me the evidences
of your devotion, your love
i want to trace the veins
of regret, of anguish
in your poetry
in your pillowcase
in your head
open up the locked drawer
where you kept the proof
that i am yours
give me a centimeter
of the reality you lived in
where i was without
but kept within

you could have
(insert verb here)
instead you did
nothing
do you know what’s
the worst part?
i could have too

the worst
has happened
i no longer
know
who you are