when i curled up at your touch,
there was no rearview mirror in your eyes
Your hand’s a gift-wrapped fantasy
Your face an apology
for a crime that was not yours.

rather, i feared
that if i yawned open (creaking)
the love trickling out would be yellow (and reeking)
my bones unstitched, you’d run away (shrieking)
                       (i’m slick with sickness on the floor)

can’t shake this (him), rancidly grasping
grinding (and swallowing) and caving, collapsing
my body a coffin lay innocence rasping
rotting and ruinous and wasted and worn

i love within a cage. Don’t open it;
i don’t want to see what’s inside