It is 12:43 in the morning.

I am envisioning lighting my face on fire.

Eyelashes drenched in kerosene, dripping down my chin, soaking my hair

Blink. Blink. Light.

I feel the scrape of the lighter under the pad of my thumb before my hair catches fire

face engulfed in flame, turned to blistered flesh in seconds.

People use the term “faceless” to describe someone they do not know the identity of.

For that reason, my appearance finally matches my lack of identity.

No pun intended.

Picking away
the skin
on my fingers

I can't sleep
so I talk with strangers

My family is a big disaster
I want to change my name
and forget about my father

My fingers start to bleed
I got a cut on my toe
it's hard to breathe

sometimes
when everyone
expects the best of me

There's no better me

Hard to imagine
me ever changing
drastically

Body blow becomes
a brand.
Talking to trees, hitting the trunk.

You were weird
asking for the blank
book to read the unwritten
poem.

Sometimes you watch the
rains unblinkingly
in timeless stance.

Like an amputee
walking on terrace wall
for a glimpse of moon.

Someone has come
to lie down on the rock
to meet the death-
after the unseen hands painted his face black.

I would weep gently.

Two wicks in
my earthen lamp. Love was
sprayed on my wings.

The gender quote
was inappropriate. You of
you and me of me were one.

The door shuts for
any god. The flowers
speak of religion.

The evening song
was a prayer. Name
was on the lips.

Sea salt was
piling up. You muffle
my hair to awaken me.

No acknowledgments were needed.

My neck is open and my hands are gone.
No, sweetheart, I don't where or when they’ll be back.
They’re just
                 gone.
My skin is dissolving. It’s melting off; I'm only marrow and sinew
                         and muscle, bubbling and festering, and I
               can’t reach around the sun to get to
You.         I can’t.
I can’t, it’s too far, it’s too hard,
                  and you know I would give you my
life-blood if I could
but I can’t.
Because the sun is too wide around and I
don't have the hands,
                     don’t have any hands, to reach inside,
Schluff off flesh, sickly as it is,
and rip out what you need,
                                           whatever you need:
I would.
I would give it you without hesitation, without penance, without
                                          mercy.
If you want me ruthless and bloodied, then I      
    will carve your name into my heart-skin and whisper it on the wind.
You are on the moon and gravity is a shackle: tell the stars I want to come home.
Tell the stars I have
                      vultures pecking at my liver
and there is a girl,
                singing, behind the rock, behind my eyes,
                             just out of reach.
Is it you, sweetheart? Are you my golden sunshine girl, singing softly where I can’t see you?
                 I just want to see you. I just want my hands back and my
skin back and these bones shoved back into place, ripped out, ripped off, whatever.
                Whatever you have to do, I’m game.
Is it cold up there?       Is there room for me, still?
I built a ladder from my failures and called it Perseverance.
     Call it a royal flush, call the doctor, call my lawyers and my mothers, but this
room is a closet and the closet is empty.
All the clothes are
on the floor. All the clothes are
on my body but I am still so, so cold.
                      I think the sun and I are feuding. I think he cursed me. I broke a rib trying to reach, reach around him and when I felt it snap, I
                   just took it out with teeth and spite and placed it on a pedestal in his altar. Placed it in a
              museum, and called it Discovery. And then I left. I’m leaving, sweetheart.
Tell the stars I’m coming home.