you've never seen me tuck my edges in. don't notice the differences between my familiars. you stared in silence seeing my voodoo doll reality; stick pins through a waxen image. you swore revenge long before you got the news i'd been wronged. the time to be proud & protective is when you have an audience. take a step back, take back your brave *******. keep talking: i love hearing you convince yourself you've never failed me.

you overlooked me folding in on myself. i keep lowering my standards, cleaning out more of my closet: clearing out more of myself. halving & halving a torn-page treason (until i am fornever more). the piled suitcase of your empty promises, your sulking tender mercies, your smirking fist grazes; i keep finding i need less & less of my inheritance.

if i keep walking on & keep calling home, will i keep waiting for you to ask what my lenses are like to look through? if i keep growing my hair & composting my body, will i someday bear fruit? if i ease into each fluctuated stride, does it matter how many miles these feet kiss? how does bloodletting me make you feel like a man? if i needed attention, would you watch over me?

but there's no good illusion for these stinging welts.