Reclined against these static sheets
My letters fade, the ashes
Of graphite rebelling against
Posterity, my words are hollows
They lack the confidence of ink
They are grey and wasting
Translating only grief
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I have never been definitive
About anything, I covet
Ancient philosophies and the
Fallen alphabets of dead poets
Filling the emptiness with
The grim confessions of
Universal suffering
Happiness is for other
People it is not for me
My heart is pain’s concubine
She will never prostitute
Herself to the light, give
Her the shadowed hands
Of a ghostly tyrant
Raping indiscriminately
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At thirty I still do not
Understand what I am
Meant to do or even what
Given enough time and
Necessity I could do
So I wait, suspended
In pickling fluid,
Slowly souring
And if I have a talent
I have not yet
Given birth to it
Not in its entirety
The blood between
My thighs, says
No life will survive
My hostile womb
Wholly
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There’s a girl in my closest
She looks like me but she’s
Flat as a piece of parchment
She’s got that look of a letter
Half-scribed, salvaged
From the waste basket
No longer smooth
It’s not right to
Say she is scarred that
Would imply a distinction,
Imply that there was
Healthy flesh woven between
Better to say she is a scar
One incongruous ravine,
You could follow her tears
Along endless tracts
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Sometimes I crouch down
Alongside her, but she is
Mute and won’t answer
Any of my questions
There isn’t a language
With enough gravity
To convey her history
I understand her the way
A mother understands
An obnoxious child
With a furrowed
Disapproving brow
But unlike that mother
I do not love her
mindlovemisery 