VIII. trompe-l’oeil

come one, come all
boys and girls
to the menagerie

sip your fill, if it suits your fancy
eat and relish, if you’d like
poke and **** and gawk and gape
oh please do make yourself at home, dear
let this pain and my unspoken words
be your momentary delight

trompe-l’œil
i could never reconcile
real and ruse

make me your canvas
lay your slick brushstrokes
before the paint on my eyes dries

make me your clay
to hold and to touch
master your craft
on my nacreous freckled flesh

make me your cloth
tuck into my glaciated folds
when you feel down
perfumed to hide the rot

pin me up by my wrists to admire
or lock me away with your shame
keep me breathing on
borrowed time and borrowed oxygen
cigarette burn kisses and asphalt smiles

keep the silk on my eyes
that i may see only what you want me to
and learn what it means to play god

you peered down at me
from chiaroscuro temple ceilings
“god or man?”, i could never tell

oh they all want to be me
ashen graphite fingers
worlds bending to my pencil whims
head buried in precal homework
hands tucked into the
holes of our sweaters
fraying laces, scuffed suede skates
swollen ankles, heads through moonroofs
as we coasted on highways and night air

it wasn’t us, but it could’ve been

toasting to our lucky constellations
i let the liquor and brown sugar
burn and stick to my ribs
crystallize into caramel cages
because it got darker and colder quicker
without you, dear
the days swallowed by yawning loneliness
and the fire let me know i was still awake

but it’s hard wearing your heart
on sweater sleeves
splayed out for the world to see

you carved it out with a paring knife
and kept it throbbing with nightstand pills

by law, every process must decay

it is said that which strikes the shell
does not scathe the pearl
but i am the product of imperfections
scraping, gnawing, ripping
like misshapen gears in a clockwork machine

if too, this bloated body was fashioned
by the hands of god

if too, this sickly brown, pockmarked skin
could glow once again

if too, games could remain games
and war could remain war

if too, blood was thicker than water
may these hands be clean

quench your thirst in my fountains
sate your hunger in my briars
dare to **** me dry, dear
(and i will ******* raw)