I don’t know,
is not a very good answer
when someone asks
“who are you?”

it is the one thing I do not know
the one thing I could bear,
simply being told

someone to dig into the very rotten core of me
hands bleeding as they cup my face
and say,
“there you are, I’ve been looking for you”

sometimes I think was made
not born, I emerged –
a sculpture carved from generations
of revolutionaries and martyrs
from a history of blood into a world
painted in the last rays of sunset

spun into being,
was my skin always stone?
or did it harden when I was ******
into the fray?

did I slice my way out into this life,
sharp claws already a part of me?
or did I scramble to arm myself
when I realized I had no choice but to fight?

my mother, my creator
she had a purpose, a goal
she built me from scratch –
the first and only of the batch

her masterpiece, treasured
each action measured
by its worth, weighed –
never allowed to be afraid

but here is the secret, here is the trick,
she made a mistake –
golems are supposed to obey,
not to want
and want
and want

and G–d do I want

my heart is a ravenous beast

it’s sleeping now, softly snoring
sound the only reminder
something still lives within me

it hungers still
but has forgotten how to bite
how to chew, how to swallow
maybe it never knew

its teeth ache when i dare to bite
the taste of affection so unfamiliar
i spit it back out and the beast,
it moves away

pressed against the back of the cage
here it cannot be reached
here it safe from the strangeness
of feeling full

i was born lying –
i’ve been cheating from the very start

i charmed my way out of the underworld
but i looked back too soon –
left something behind

i was born starving   –
beneath a fruit tree i can never reach
standing in wine i can never drink

i can feel it, i know
if i fly too high, i’ll start to fall
my heart is held together with wax
too much salt, too much sun –
and it all comes apart

i was born freezing –
so i ask – darling, can you burn me to ash?

I killed the girl I used to be
I haven’t buried her yet
I stare at her rotting corpse, in the corner of my room,
of my heart, where she rests
unmoving, unbreathing


I killed her kindness because her kindness
wasn’t killing anything
and I needed to be deadly
purge the weakness from my body
with poison

it burns me but hopefully, it hurts him too

give me venom so I can bite back
better yet toxic skin
so touching me means death.

make me dangerous so I can
laugh when I want to scream

she was too soft
so I shot her through the heart
and it didn’t make it unbreak.
funny how that works

I’ve crawled my way out
of her shattered remains
gruesome, but that’s what survival is
surviving

the changes I have wrought upon myself can only be considered ******
second degree
malicious but not meticulous

I killed the girl I used to be
I killed her because he couldn’t
now I’m something new
something I can’t quite name
don’t recognize

but at least he hasn’t touched me