Why I Write

Because I have to.
Because each breath infests my body with the ghosts of God.

Because I can feel your fingers in my spine.
I am afflicted.

I'm nervous and excited and sick.
I can feel my blood rushing round.
My feet become rooted to the earth.

I'm not myself, now. You're here, and it's only you.
You'll make me vomit up my intestines, so I can
float through the cracked white dome of the sky.

But I can affix you. I'll find the exact words,
and I'll pin you in place, so they can study you,
like one of Nabokov's butterflies.

If I can only make you, then, I can destroy you.