it's possible to lose yourself in loneliness

at some point
my solo reflection that
gazed back into
glassy hollow unequal pupils
began to claw hungrily at the glass
bated breath fogging the
thin membranous divider
keeping back the
unadulterated
most abject terror

that wooden grain
geometrically containing the
image who must stay
hidden in the holy of holies
or risk the ruin of all
things

she beats against the glass
that wraith girl with the
sutured mouth and
blinded eyes
and skin who cries out
for the slice of liquid mirror shards
and grasps the edges
of that rectangular prison
jagged pieces sliding sensually
keys into forbidden locks
surgically opening
the red liquorish vines
pulsing with a viscous
pungent poison
just underneath
onion paper skin

her nails scrape lead paint chips
off the crumbling frame
and i take them into myself
sewing them with the care
of a grandmother's arthritic hand
into the warm moist black
i can ever count on

she falls
like a newborn foal
glistening with those
maternal fluids
the literal matrix of life
hesitant steps on the
feet from that other dimension
where laws diverge and
perception is not relative
but horridly absolute

how can she manage
that leap which
knocks me straight out of my body
astrally exiled from myself
and filled to the brim
with a ghost girl
marionette
with painted sanguine smile
and strings attached
at each one of my joints
moving me with a flick
of some nameless fear

i think i spent too much time
trying to reconcile
the foreign body whose
defection left me howling with
a fiery bloodlust and an
insatiable hunger to vaporize those
staining contaminants
those long chain fatty acids that
deposit like stones in my pockets
weighing me down to the
river bed
whose mirror still reflects
the graven image of
a sinner-saint
whose sallow complexion
demonstrates her devotion
and in her death
faith
though her sacrifice was no
crucifixion to relieve me
of any of my
transgressions
or prevent me from
besmirching the god
i'm not sure i totally believe in

how do i give myself to you
and banish the apprehension
that comes with the
crash landing of me into
this corporeal form
stolen from me ages ago

how do i tell you that
when your hands trace
the curvaceous line of this body
that it feels like a fire's touch
scorching me to the bone
burning me at the stake of
my inadequacy and simultaneous
excess

it's too much.