I walked it
to keep me from
walking back into
the slaughterhouse

read renewed obit daily
spattered on asphyxiating
pulmonary walls when
you moved on in
an attempt to replace
our magical rarity

maybe it was for
the exact same reason
you put the gun in
your lonely mouth

preferring suicide to waiting
for unsuspecting heart
to get massacred

again

choosing instead to stroll
hollow self-made planks
with egoic illusions
of control

I won’t

walk it again
I’m stronger now

though it will hurt if
you repeat the bore
boring stale pattern
into open skull

starting
to flower

it will be no
surprise

and I know I
will be OK
this time

look
I know I
terrify you

quake your bones at
thought of home foreclosed
U-Hauled, stooped alone affront
cold locked door

too bad
there’s no one else
who understands what that’s like
who’d hold your hand and dive inside
your diverting fractured ice in melt
saying silently, as I turn to pools

me.
*******.
too.