please hurt me in
the ways you'd hurt
yourself. i am no
friend to your ground,
no faction to your
brotherly causes. stay
a while, listen. soothe
me with the burn marks
you give me. i cannot bear
the idea that you love me. i
cannot fathom any real
feeling you would have for
me as being worth more than
a strand of your broken hair

falling, surmounting distance,
or electric brazen fences.
listen.

you, of all things,
tested my immanence. you
cannot think, after all
these lives, i'd live to
tell my own story?