The Trick to Being Shameless

The trick to being shameless

that is, letting go of shame

   doubt seeded in your heart waiting

to grow with every sunrise

is to cast it out for the scrutiny

of faceless strangers – necessity for me

   and I confess to thoughtless cruelty

   age 9, hot water poured over our pet cat

            but I cannot speak

Angry thought

   I could never love someone like you

and predatory urges as I steal gas money

   from my little brother’s wallet or

   on the hunt, find Mom’s weed

the surge of disgust as a man brushes

   against me in a sticker shop, then again

            but I cannot speak

The destruction – how I longed

   to carve claw marks over my eyes

if I can’t be beautiful then at least

   I can make them look

or sing my body electric, my old mentor

loading my arms with Whitman and Oliver

   how can I forgive her

for changing my life

The fear in sinking into the old

   couch with an eternity bitten in my wrist

and I tell her of vertigo on the cliff

    everyone is afraid of how much

they want to jump

never told her how I planned

   to grab my girlfriend’s hand

            so we could fall together

            of this, I cannot speak

I should abandon the doubt

scrabbling with veritaphobia in my throat

            if I ever deemed to open up

words would drop from my mouth, crystalline

            and so, I write