When they say
You’re so beautiful
I’d prefer they
Get a needle
And stitch their mouths
Shut
It isn’t true
I have a horse for a jaw
A mountain for a forehead
And my eyes are
Continually watering
With their words
Some do not feel like kindness
They are broken pieces of yourself
Irreconcilable
Don’t call me that
Can’t you see beneath the layers
A scream is
Not beautiful
You only say that
Because words have become filler
For silence
And
Often for truth
But the truth is
I am an animal
My jaw continually muscular
You chew
This artificial sweetener as we
Press ourselves obedient
Sitting in high chairs at empty tables
Void of nourishment
The formal hedges of the maze, flower late this year
Too little rain save saline, and crackers, left to dampen in the tree house
I always said
Cut the crusts off
Take a plunge
Underwater you can see better when they come
Patent toes incased in skin, cramping their march
Like wooden soldiers who
Briefly lent life’s lumbering
Will grow flushed and warm
Retaining their glimmering uniforms
Dyed into the marrow of their grain
Did you see the imprint of the pillow where I have lain?
Watching for night markets among the trees
Hawking their jewels as magpie thieves
A glimmer of willow the wisp
Forfeiting glamor for real magic
Vaporized by the sound of reality
Clicking like an old boiler trying to knit her self the semblance
Of youth
Glazing the russet bleed of nightfall
