the ugly thought is a mouth
that has forgotten how to chew
my pulse
is a small animal
pacing a cage of ribs
I keep finding fingerprints in the air
wet and patient
a radio in my head plays a frequency
I cannot tune out
words arrive as bruises
tender and immediate
I walk through rooms
that remember me
better than I do
a shadow
has
learned my name
and refuses to say it aloud
there is a taste of metal
that has nothing
to do with teeth
I press my palm to the window and
the glass answers with cold
a city exhales and something
in the exhale is unfinished
I am
carrying
a rumor in my pocket
that keeps growing teeth
my thoughts are thin ropes fraying
at both ends
I keep rehearsing apologies to people
who are not present
a lightbulb hums
a confession
and then goes mute
my breath
keeps tripping over an absent syllable
there is a map in my chest
with routes I never took
I wake
to the sound of a door closing
in another house
the night has a bruise
the color of old telegrams
I find a photograph
folded into the shape of a question
my hands remember
a language my mouth has forgotten
there is a small
steady erosion
under the tongue of the day
I am learning how to be surprised
by my own silence
a clock counts down
in a dialect I do not understand
the air carries a rumor of movement
slow and deliberate
I keep expecting the floor to give me
an honest answer
something in the dark
is patient enough
to wait for me
I am practicing the art of not looking
away
from the wound
the world
has a seam
and I can feel it unthreading underfoot
I hold a single
ordinary fear
and it multiplies in my hands
when morning comes
it will not be a rescue
only a new arrangement