I scraped my knee
and asked my lover if he thought
the blood is brown because I am all dried out and
rotten inside,
or if I am just full of dirt. As children, we
drew lines in cemetery soil

pretended to snort them – I must have inhaled
the cry of someone’s bones
their whimpers
of exhaustion

(my angel in a cloud
who I cry for each day
keeps asking me to just let her die, she is every
unidentified flying object and
she is tired
of needing to stay afloat, even with wings).

I wish I didn’t need so much sleep
but it is probably my fault.

I lifted
a bookcase of pretty things, doilies beneath
porcelain faces and bottoms
mildew
smoke-stained letters

and blocked the windowpane. Light reminds me
too much of
how I became a mistress
thinking I would not take anything away,
thought I was adding more love
into the world – it is
too full.

Darkness is absence, darkness is my
own creation.

I spent my allowance on it
to pretend I am still young enough for bad men to
want to play dolls
with me, twist their heads around backwards
so they will never know of their
private parts

never be like me.