intravenous confessional
She sounds like gasping and stillness at daybreak,
spreading in silence the ripple over glass surface
of pond; she wanders in concentric circles, infantile
and bruised; skin like ripe fruit beneath tree,
having fallen from grace 'round the time the blood
first stained the bedsheets with proof of fertility
and humiliation.
She looks like paralysis and regret with alabaster shading
at the edges. She tries to comprehend the physics of your lust
as it wraps her in swaddling clothes but lays her to rest
beyond the manger in a grove of trees with shadowed leaves
and knotted roots--she intertwines in your absence,
combines with rotted bark, stark-naked and without,
so very much without that vision on the horizon
others call comfort and faith in redemption.
She sounds like the persistence of bumblebee
at summer picnic, static electricity, and phone line delay
across continental separation; like marbles on tile
and the salience of memory surrounding
the systematic dismemberment of virginity--
her theme song skips a beat, pulse quickening like fetus
stirring to life in womb scarred by abandonment and
sharp tip of forceps.
She smells like the musk of growing older, like
wallpaper paste, sawdust, and rose oil with lye, spread
in layers over skin cracked by lack of salve or a loving hand
to spread it. She would ask for communion but her tongue
grew thick with isolation years before she started seeking
salvation; words escape her. She cradles her vulnerability
in a hammock grown threadbare and whittled
by condemnation.
She tastes like vine-ripened blackberries tainted
by the juice of pricked fingertips, the chemical numbness
of powdered-sinus drip, and dry mouth at four o'clock
in the morning. She tastes like she's been tasted
before but he fails to find the sweetness she protects with
stubborn vigilance because without it she would only be
half of bittersweet (and not the better half).
She feels like aloe vera over skin seared by exclusion
and acidity; like Calamine lotion and powdered gloves; soft
like worn jersey cotton t-shirt and body without infrastructure
of bone; she feels like she never came home. So she shifts
between beds that are never her own in search of a self lost
to the chaos of captivity--she endeavors to adjust to this
crushing sense of being alone but coping is sporadic,
hope is erratic, and she always comes full circle to her
point of origin where nothing better this way comes.
She lies in wait for a memorable end to a life already
forgotten in the infinite cavity of history passed, withering
beneath the stone malice of neglect, with glassy eyes and
skin grown thick with cold; she wonders who will miss her
come mo(u)rning and laments with acceptance that
she will never know.
She consents to the imminence of lacking breath
so long as her innocence is protected in death
from the violation that the warmth of her body invited
(inadvertently) when blood still ran in subways beneath
multi-layered epidermis, and he left behind only pain and
chafed thighs in the acrid hereafter. She will not accept
this ache within the pinkness of her flesh after sacrificing
hope for tomorrow.
She lives raw on skinned knees but dies softly
like the sting of a salt-scented breeze lingering sensuously
over these death-slackened fingers until darkness consumes
all earthly things and she submits to what her end will bring.
[Thrice in her honor the churchbells ring, wishing her
peace and the support of strong wings to carry and guide her
like benign puppet strings; free from the maladies bound
tightly to living--even the righteous absolve her of sin, sing
out her praises, and pray that she find contentment within].
She sounds like gasping in the stillness of the aftermath,
a whisper carried by passing wind, she crosses the threshold,
through the curtain barring the tangibility of living by senses
from the ambiguity of bodiless experiences; at last
she can relinquish control by ceasing her hold over
the manner in which each moment fades away; lying safe
in the folds of space-time, she'll stay, embraced by Eternity
as it welcomes her home, to the space she occupied before
she was born and there, she will face the turmoil inside,
confide all her secrets and regain her pride, as this place
exists solely for her to reside in and heal, become strong
by coddling the wounds from the wrongs he committed and
nursing her crosshatch collection of white skin, textured
by anger, branding fluttery limbs;
her scars are still tender in the afterlife, thick without
having been soothed by a sense of solid ground beneath her-
but now this space provides sanctuary, for as long and as sure
as time passes by, here she shall always belong.
[But belonging cannot satiate the loneliness
that underlies both her beginning and her end-
it defines both her perimeter and the length of her reach
and she is eternally left groping in air heavy with
the blackness of anti-matter for some foreign flesh
that will prove her wrong, but she succeeds only in
blinding herself to the solitude that surrounds her;
she cannot help but die alone in the company of
rhythmic machines that keep us artificially alive
like metal lung to emphysema, oxygen tubes dangling
lifeless from nostril, and catheter peeking discretely
from waistband of pant-
She has no one there to hold her hand and give her
the courtesy of lying about the existence of God
to soothe away the panic writhing atop cancer-pocked
lung so she can pass more peacefully; and she has
no one there to say goodbye as her feet go cold,
her body stiffens, and all the machines whine
in a chorus of b flat to alert someone
that she’s gone and that her bed is now available
for the next person waiting.
…Now serving number 39.]
.
spreading in silence the ripple over glass surface
of pond; she wanders in concentric circles, infantile
and bruised; skin like ripe fruit beneath tree,
having fallen from grace 'round the time the blood
first stained the bedsheets with proof of fertility
and humiliation.
She looks like paralysis and regret with alabaster shading
at the edges. She tries to comprehend the physics of your lust
as it wraps her in swaddling clothes but lays her to rest
beyond the manger in a grove of trees with shadowed leaves
and knotted roots--she intertwines in your absence,
combines with rotted bark, stark-naked and without,
so very much without that vision on the horizon
others call comfort and faith in redemption.
She sounds like the persistence of bumblebee
at summer picnic, static electricity, and phone line delay
across continental separation; like marbles on tile
and the salience of memory surrounding
the systematic dismemberment of virginity--
her theme song skips a beat, pulse quickening like fetus
stirring to life in womb scarred by abandonment and
sharp tip of forceps.
She smells like the musk of growing older, like
wallpaper paste, sawdust, and rose oil with lye, spread
in layers over skin cracked by lack of salve or a loving hand
to spread it. She would ask for communion but her tongue
grew thick with isolation years before she started seeking
salvation; words escape her. She cradles her vulnerability
in a hammock grown threadbare and whittled
by condemnation.
She tastes like vine-ripened blackberries tainted
by the juice of pricked fingertips, the chemical numbness
of powdered-sinus drip, and dry mouth at four o'clock
in the morning. She tastes like she's been tasted
before but he fails to find the sweetness she protects with
stubborn vigilance because without it she would only be
half of bittersweet (and not the better half).
She feels like aloe vera over skin seared by exclusion
and acidity; like Calamine lotion and powdered gloves; soft
like worn jersey cotton t-shirt and body without infrastructure
of bone; she feels like she never came home. So she shifts
between beds that are never her own in search of a self lost
to the chaos of captivity--she endeavors to adjust to this
crushing sense of being alone but coping is sporadic,
hope is erratic, and she always comes full circle to her
point of origin where nothing better this way comes.
She lies in wait for a memorable end to a life already
forgotten in the infinite cavity of history passed, withering
beneath the stone malice of neglect, with glassy eyes and
skin grown thick with cold; she wonders who will miss her
come mo(u)rning and laments with acceptance that
she will never know.
She consents to the imminence of lacking breath
so long as her innocence is protected in death
from the violation that the warmth of her body invited
(inadvertently) when blood still ran in subways beneath
multi-layered epidermis, and he left behind only pain and
chafed thighs in the acrid hereafter. She will not accept
this ache within the pinkness of her flesh after sacrificing
hope for tomorrow.
She lives raw on skinned knees but dies softly
like the sting of a salt-scented breeze lingering sensuously
over these death-slackened fingers until darkness consumes
all earthly things and she submits to what her end will bring.
[Thrice in her honor the churchbells ring, wishing her
peace and the support of strong wings to carry and guide her
like benign puppet strings; free from the maladies bound
tightly to living--even the righteous absolve her of sin, sing
out her praises, and pray that she find contentment within].
She sounds like gasping in the stillness of the aftermath,
a whisper carried by passing wind, she crosses the threshold,
through the curtain barring the tangibility of living by senses
from the ambiguity of bodiless experiences; at last
she can relinquish control by ceasing her hold over
the manner in which each moment fades away; lying safe
in the folds of space-time, she'll stay, embraced by Eternity
as it welcomes her home, to the space she occupied before
she was born and there, she will face the turmoil inside,
confide all her secrets and regain her pride, as this place
exists solely for her to reside in and heal, become strong
by coddling the wounds from the wrongs he committed and
nursing her crosshatch collection of white skin, textured
by anger, branding fluttery limbs;
her scars are still tender in the afterlife, thick without
having been soothed by a sense of solid ground beneath her-
but now this space provides sanctuary, for as long and as sure
as time passes by, here she shall always belong.
[But belonging cannot satiate the loneliness
that underlies both her beginning and her end-
it defines both her perimeter and the length of her reach
and she is eternally left groping in air heavy with
the blackness of anti-matter for some foreign flesh
that will prove her wrong, but she succeeds only in
blinding herself to the solitude that surrounds her;
she cannot help but die alone in the company of
rhythmic machines that keep us artificially alive
like metal lung to emphysema, oxygen tubes dangling
lifeless from nostril, and catheter peeking discretely
from waistband of pant-
She has no one there to hold her hand and give her
the courtesy of lying about the existence of God
to soothe away the panic writhing atop cancer-pocked
lung so she can pass more peacefully; and she has
no one there to say goodbye as her feet go cold,
her body stiffens, and all the machines whine
in a chorus of b flat to alert someone
that she’s gone and that her bed is now available
for the next person waiting.
…Now serving number 39.]
.