*** sickens me as an artifact,
A cruel twisting of the womb;
An androgynous vein
Bursting out of a wealth of shame.

They tell you not to soak
A new tattoo for two weeks time
But these wounds, these ethereal,
Spiritual tattoos of mine
Have been festering under water
For a lifetime.

If only the ink
Of the pen
Of my past
Could just bleed

Out.

I would ****** my arm
Above the water's edge
If only I could be certain
That you would save me.

How old were you
When you realized
That your friends
Were slowly disappearing?
Waxing,
Tracing the moon across their fingertips
As they dissolved into stardust?

I am twenty one years old
And I am the loneliest
I have ever been.

I can hear them now,
"Get off me, get off me,
Poor creature, poor creature,"
I have arrived at an impasse.
In what kind of world
Will justice be served
Based on the hem of my skirt;
In what world be it served,
Based on the drink in my cup?
I speak not on the forked tongue
Of a miserly bedfellow,
But on the wings of a **** moth,
Gorgeous and pale
And fragile and small.

I may be a **** moth,
But they named a war plane after me
For a **** good reason.

Like Severus and Lily,
We came to each other by chance.
I transfigured myself into your life
Already on a pedestal,
Our words chaining ourselves
To each other
Until death.

Years have passed
Without so much as a flicker between us
But here you stand
Today
With the words of our pasts
Strung together and hanging like frayed ropes from your wrists.

In my dreams you come to me
With your hand outstretched,
A snake burrowed into the cuff
Of your long sleeved,
Blue-collar work shirt.
I do not hesitate to take it.
I am bitten.

I wake up in a cold sweat,
The snake of men past
Now burrowed next to me
In the king sized bed.
I am not afraid
But I do not trust.

I live for the nights
That tread lightly into the hours of day:

Talking to you about anything
Is like mind-*******,
And not in the David Lynch way.