I'm Gone To Sleep

I do want to know how I can change. Daub the nail polish on the runs in those panty hose. Hiding what's left of the bruises on my legs.

Bent over the toilet. Removing the tampons from my head. Bloated. Abundant with the crimson mucous of a life unresolved. My thoughts still menstruating in thick clumps. I put someone inside to plug up the hole. But they're only sieves.

Straining the pulp from the liquid. Sucking the woman out of the child. Stale on a bed she's never slept in.

Opening doors. Answering calls. With the apathy of an artist. Drawing islands in oceans of skin. Arguing with the braids in her hair. Using up the last of her coloring books on people she couldn't draw.

If there's anything to the rumble of the walls. That black abyss between then and now. Anything I've yet to hear. Say it soon. Or don't say it at all.

I do want to pick the flowers. Smell their perfume through the allergens wedged up my ass. Flirting with the truth in the small print of testosterone encyclopedias. Tracing the images they draw upon my flesh. In soft crayons made of beer. In bridges as weak as my resolve. The softer stars melt down from the sky. Frosting on stale cakes. The usual catharsis of bored demons. They're tired of me.

I love what I can see. Meteors and puppies dogs. I love what loves me. Nothing at all.

I love the words that dare to reveal how alone we are. I love that they're gone, but haven't forgotten.

How alone we are.

I'm gone to sleep long ago. But they still wake me up sometimes.