6:16AM

I want my skin to turn to cotton
so I can feed the last of my quarters
into a rickety washer under dim
lights and shed
- punch ‘rinse cycle’ until the god
damn
button breaks under dirty
nails

take it to the withered old woman
who made it for me and get the
slices
stitched up
I wish she had eyes that could see
what I saw
the look on my face when there was
so much blood
I didn’t doubt that I’d
die
when it was carving
my collarbones in harsh
crimson
strokes
and ma’ I swear I didn’t mean to cut
that
deep

that trauma is the glass I chewed for
all of you
and forced up with fingers so many times
my insides gurgled into gore
I built a beautiful persona out of
incest and
rape
I did the best I could with
the pieces I
had and my name is on the lips
of people I don’t even
know

they can’t see
there’s a kingdom just inside me
where the devil does his
bidding
he gives them pieces
of my empress
of wall to wall secrets that rot
within
my
womb
I am wretched from crown to toe
but my skin gleams
pearlescent
when they
bleed it of it’s
beauty

I am watching the rinse cycle
spin soapy circles into
rain
that only falls when I can’t see any of it
at all
I am steel
I am granite
I am the trash at the dump that takes
years to
decom p o s e

and
his sheets will smell of ‘we’
when he finally sleeps
and that will be the last time he
thinks
of me