Open Throat

I feel more like a person than ever because I'm starting to hate myself

I say something it sounds like words it's not what they want to hear

I’m old because I’m not dead

if you feel alone in the world find someone to worship you

I have so much language in my brain and nowhere to put it

she sees the dead man and she sees that I made him that way and her fists clench and she shudders like an earthquake we meet for the first time hello little slaughter this is what a goddess looks like

it's okay old is fine I'm old because I"m not dead

I watch their hands as they walk away hands that could be grabbing bottles and throwing but instead are wrapped together and connected

my mother was very kind her bloodthirst was insatiable she taught me how to snap a neck with my jaws why would I ever leave her

a father to a kitten is an absence a grown cat to a father is a threat

I can't fix this I have no idea what it's like to be a person and to be confronted with a me

the stillness now is not the stillness before

I think of all the nights we'll spend together this man and his guts and me

I try to understand people but they make it hard

any sec I could step off a cliff I think I've always felt this way the smoke makes it clear

I wonder if I'd been brave enough and tried to cross first would he have found my body or if we'd crossed together would we both have made it

this is too much the shudder inside becomes unbearable I can't eat everything I'm afraid of

what they see makes them point or stop and turn and put their hands on their hips and breathe deep but the distance they love is an out of focus blur when I try to look where they're looking all I can see is what's right in front of me

with my last breath I think the word please let me start over

she throws the phone and I go to get it for her and she laughs and says leave it I look again at the picture that can't be me it doesn't have a smell I don't trust screens to tell me who I am

more lights than I could ever count stretch out into the darkness and they don't stop stretching I'm scared of how far they go

this may be their town but we all live in scare city

she makes a circle of sparkling stones around my sofa and kneels and feeds me from her outstretched palm and calls me her goddess if you feel alone in the world find someone to worship you

I stare at the trees because the trees don't talk

my eyes I like to think the man who ran will remember my eyes always

I'm not sure what a scare city mentality is but I have it

I'm the same color as my thicket and the same color as the ground no one sees me unless I want them to

small and sick and afraid three of my favorite flavors

pinks and reds like sparks of blood and thought

I feel more like a person than ever because I’m starting to hate myself