perception

holding a knife with mother of pearl weaved through the handle, a blacksmith welds

blindfolded, his hands as coaled and chalked in grit as his eyes are soft

devastating, sincere

unaware that he breaks metal without burden

unaware i hear every remark

he holds the knife

i stab myself with.

...

TO LONG

i know you

you’re cold, admired, you’re discreet and horrible

i stand watching with an unhinged jaw, dumbfounded,

pearled burn scars bursting at the seams on my upper arm

from cigarettes like the one hanging from your mouth

you’re discreet but not discreet enough. presumptions leak from small growls that

people- people like me-

are not meant to hear.

you don’t know me

but you could’ve. any of you could’ve known me.

lights dance and echo across torn walls together, waltzing off in a daze,

stumbling each step, barely catching themselves over and over again

transcending both of us, we who are just a floor across from each other

the heavy thudding bass shocks my muscles in quick electric doses

i gulp in a corner until the sound of speaking is unaligned with the movement of lip and cheek

with a heavy sinking in my stomach, warm, floating, horrified

watching you melt away, splintering the tainted floorboards each step,

and i wonder if you have a name

you’re mesmerizing and disorienting

a pinnacle of melodramatic adolescence

smart, calculated, reckless,

i need you to know my name

you could've known me

could've known my name.

...

TO NEGLECT 

a white string, almost invisible

line of sight draws between us

(from my eyes to his)

stays leveled, parallel to the ground on which we stand,

but i still feel a bend

and you still don’t look.

well, no, you do look-

you know im there. you know i stand here

but you aren’t.

seeing me.

you aren’t seeing me.

you bend the line to look through me.

you snap vertebral growths that ive traced so carefully to look down on me,

begging for schism of a balance that i, aimlessly, blindly,

push and wade through swallowing stalks to reach for.

but balance cant be accepted by those who thirst for, cant breathe without,

are forever sustained by,

the bend.

and the air he exists in, that holds him like a mother,

tears into me with brutality.

a force of two hands on the skin of my back that pushes so deep

i feel the black, choking dust of his hands ease through the skin and drift unto each branch of my lungs

filling tunnel after tunnel of an inner, beautifully sacred branchwork until black pours out

staining the teeth and lips of my quiet pretty mouth.

he compresses more and more the space i can’t take up, im not allowed to fill,

so as to help me. ensure me that i will always remember to be smaller for him.

the smell of burning hair and metal engulfing my fingers

covering my arm in coal as it encircles

just enough grasp to make me hold my breath

it closes in.

Closes in on my arms. On my clothes. How i sit.

What i dream of. My reflection. The visual inhumanity he makes me believe i have.

it closes in on me.

...

TO DEFEND 

his words and the violent bludgeoning swing of a blacksmith's fist is innocuous

the roots of humanity he carries glistens upon his shoulders

the kings, the saviors, the statues, the worthy, the chosen, the slayers, the killers, the winners

so mother says it’s innate, whispered through his blood, and besides

“the culprit of a catastrophe could never be someone so witty and wise”

so there. you grasp the disposable permission. 

leave me.

leave me to push. leave me to look into your eyes. leave me to fade. 

...

its dangerous.

the confining done by someone unaware he has the capability to do so much more.