sugar, sugar
crunching subjugated under these bootheels
the Diamond Dust on whom I Cut my Teeth
sugar, sugar
sand between the raw fingertips
i am a ***** now
salt swatched on the flesh
that tenderizes the meat
that dissolves the snail-heart
the dull slug-eyes
Pink Salt
Pink Sands
sugar, sugar
Oh you said it would be sweet, but son,
It was rough
Rough
Rough

I don’t get hungry in my stomach anymore.
I think it’s in my legs,
Or in my armpits.
It’s like an itch I can’t track:
Now on the back of my neck,
Now on the knuckles of my left hand.
A poison ivy spreading over to parts of me I didn’t know could feel want.
“What did you do?”
I have to ask.
I have concerns.
But bottomless pits and voids do not give answers,
Only echoes:
“What did you do?”
What did I do,
What did I do,

I need too much
I lean too hard
I want a pale white apple
With my name bruised into it
Offered to me by the hand of Saint Peter
Near the end of June
Anything to soothe the sting of these
Too dry, too long dry, red lips

I want a shawl as light as dragonfly wings
Warm in winter and cool in summer
Weaved of spider silk
With seams of straight lightning
Pulled down from the sky
Anything to wrap this
Too naked, too long naked, white frame

I lean too hard
My arms pressing into the tops of heads
Into the yoke of another man's shoulder
Hold me up and stuff pillows for me
Can't you see that I will fall into ruin?

You sleep on a bed of broken eggs and spilled milk
In the town square,
And no one's sure if you're unashamed
Or disabled.
We liked your red shoes until we realized
They were stained with your own blood,
And then when you left your foot prints everywhere,
The janitor set down a trail of yellow signs in your wake.
Can I spare some change?
Am I headed your way?
Would it be too much trouble?
I can't really tell which of us is selfish anymore,
And it seems like you don't want to be anywhere in particular anymore.
Don't want to crash on my couch.
Don't want to go home.
Don't want to wander.
Unable to fade away into the night,
Marked by your trail of oozed calamity
And signs that claim none of the liability.

I don't wanna talk anymore.
I said my piece.
I said it in cut flowers.
I said it in puddles of *****.
I screamed it in your face
I knelt it at your feet
I hugged it at your knees
I cleaned it from your wounds
I brought it to you in a band-aid box.
Get outta here black wolf.
I lit candles for you and said prayers.
Stop hanging around for more scraps.
I don't wanna talk anymore.
I said my piece.

Eat the skin off your lips,
You bird starving in winter.
Pluck your hair, your skin, your nails,
Let nothing grow from the dirt of you,
Harvest time and time again,
Knees in the black earth,
Hands tearing up leaves,
Slash, slash, slash,
And forget to burn until the earth is infertile.

How long will you chase yourself around
With a raised broom in the tiny cavern of your skull?
When will your pitter-patter feet,
And swish-a-wash straws,
And bird heart,
And mouse voice
Fall to rest in a silent pile
In the middle of the floor?

Your bird heart and mouse voice
Are like Joan's lion ones,
Should you ever manage to fall in a pile,
They will still whine like coals in its center.
They will thump and sing and harmonize
The unkillable refrain of your panic:
SLASH, SLASH, SLASH,
And forget to burn.

White women's eyes flash in
Trickle-down smiles,
Outlined in nacre and kohl.
The fact that she turns forty once every year
Is not why she never grows old.
They won't die, they won't die!
By the skin of my thighs,
A new crop pops up every year!
With an antebellum name
And a draped-in-lace frame,
They grow up with poison in their ears.
Where am I going and where have I been,
And where do I find myself now,
But that same debutantes' court of white sin,
Wiping white tears from my brow?