inspired forgetting
or repressed memories
push their palms to the front of my skull,
so deeply,
so urgently that dust coats their hands like a snowstorm
and i shake,
i q-q-quiver beneath the pressure
like old news tucked away in the corner of a closet,
and there's still room for one more problem,
one more echo,
one more brilliant mistake.

i am a wound with the depth of a mile long cave
and i say hello,
hello honey lovely,
to a hellion that never stays gone for too long.
it repeats in a torrent,
tugging at loose shingles
and drowning my cottages in distaste for my effort,
my attempt at normalcy,
at sanity,
and i am shamed,
i am littled into the dirt
where even dandelion seeds are bigger
and a single drop is a waterfall
and i am drowned,
swallowed,
beaten by it,
by him
and her
and them
and everything in the world
excepting my most sorry of selves
that is so bruised,
so cramped that breathing is a struggle
and there is no room,
no possibility of reprimand for myself.

mould is thick,
heady on my tongue
and i am buried,
tucked away beneath the weight of the world
and it is loud here,
louder than death has any right to be
and i am soothed by it
but joy is not permitted here
and his hands coil
and stretch
and shimmer
and c-c-clench against my piccolo pipes;
wheezing,
heaven is welcome--
no,
i am not made to die,
not lying down in the dark.

twenty-two years
and i have never felt the prickle of wings
but here beneath the dirt,
in the filthy dark,
they split from my skin
and envelope me in a canopy of blue;
the world is a thick,
ugly bruise
and i am dying to taste it,
to touch it with hands that do not shake,
that are not chained,
and i will not bear it a moment more,
i will not submit to ribbed hands
and broken vowels like some maimed child,
desperate for company
or love
or something more.

a moment escapes the dark
and i am free
but there is no flying,
there is no great escape into the wide sky like some released dove,
just a soft succession to the earth
with the wind on my face
and my hands in my own hands,
loosely held and prideful in their reality.