later in the kitchen we will compare –
around here they call them kisses,
bracelet full of bruises
creeps up your arm and becomes a flowerbed.

the nurses all have soft voices, they claim
they do not want to hurt you. but they are too quick,
too quick to bury the hatchet in my veins and
spill sugar inside.

my parents will come by, maybe,
make disapproving sounds and sigh.
make accusations by omission. we will probably
not speak, except that I will say I am tired

which is true. it is hard to sleep, when my screams
so easily become someone else’s, a chorus
of ghosts shrieking through the walls, all knowing
the same thing: once you let them tie you down,

feed you warmth, you are bound once again to this earth.