When you were a baby
And They saw you
And They birthed you, They bore you
They handed you to Mother
She dressed you and bathed you,
She taught you
Mirrored fingers cast back your large, sleepless eyes
She cradled you for the first of many times
❧
The finite twists in your cloth-wrapped torso
Your wrists stuck clamped and birling out
Your self unravels as twirling paper strips
Your childhood home
Now a map and a blueprint
Of crooked door frames and diagonal notches
Taken out of stair steps
In years or inches
Solid wax on the table
The belching plumbing
That climbs up the walls
The sharp corner that punctured the soft part of your skull
The first time you fell from a tree that’s as old as I am
And a moth swept past you
Owl-like eyes on its wings
Large— like dinnerplates
The memory of which will flash like a bulb
❧
Like the first time you cried alone
And how you could recount in detail
Your heart, a rising plane engine
And buzzing of blood that pools in the hollow drum
Of your ears
Your eyes,
Bagged in plastic
And projecting foreign pictures
You clasped your knees to your chest
To keep the cage from bursting open
To keep it spewing out as a faulty faucet
While light glowed through the tiny gaps in your fingers
Locked and barred like dog teeth to signal
That time
is passing
❧
You swallowed that pain like the rising vomit
In the bathroom cubicle of your primary school
And the loneliness dampened your bedroom floor
Spun you drunk
Took you up like a tongue
Lifted your sailless boat of a bed and stole you
While a flurry of moths spattered at the window
Like tossed rocks of future lovers (all of which you’d never let touch you)
Bumbling for the opening
Your head on the sodden sponge of your pillow
While you cradled your stony body in
❧
They scooped; kissed the candle, lit on your desk
Desperately scorched their furs and their fans
Fell to the floor, weighed down by the flames
Their impulse was a tinder sparking
On a child’s tight fist of damp moss in the forest
❧
When you were a baby
And They saw you
And They birthed you, They bore you
They handed you to Mother
She dressed you, bathed you,
She taught you
Mirrored fingers cast back your large, sleepless eyes
As she cradled you for a finite time
Whatever I decide
White wing moths crash at the windshime
One day I will choose to be alive
❧
As the last paper thread lets go of my fingertip
I fall through the bed
Sink in like the rot
Bend through the floor
Stream and split through the prism
I know these things come back in other forms
ORIGINALLY titled: “extermination”, then “go away/ don’t leave me alone”, then “uroboros”, “Time loops” and “death drive” until finally settling on this haha. I’ve been MIA because I’ve been kind of sick, but I’m okay. Maybe I can get back to writing soon, when my life feels more stable and normal ❧
Photo by Hayley Maxwell on Unsplash
