The funding of my own little massacre,
my own precious little war crime. My smoke
is everywhere. My father coughs in his sleep.
My mother gags, hangs her head out the window, sick.

My cheap *** before and after cheap ***.
I chat up some high-waisted pastiche on Alberta.
She tells me collage this and that and looks
so lit up and skinny, it's a dream.

Where I go to brand myself. I have this image
of a spark on my arm sitting stovetop red,
sinking into the skin, losing color as it digs,
turning to grey and then nothing like the drowning
of a comet's tail in atmosphere. My burns look so good
in the pale dormitory bathroom shower light: so baby tulip
and teeth, so how-I've-made-it-through-the-wringer.
Christ, I should be a film, look at me: so bent and bright,
such a cute boxer, such a prize fight.