I am peeling myself open for you
my bones are sun-bleached and even stained
with bootblack blood and all my own heart’s illness

I don’t think it’s possible for you to inhabit this space
any more than I have ached to find the way out of it
and my voice echoes, long and empty there

you all have found it with your spotlight fingers
touched every inch of my quivering red
broken every single cell down into meaty chunks for snacking

you think I belong there, between lines and stanzas
but I free myself with them

there is never more truth than when I have
finished here

there is nothing more to it than
that consumption
-is all I’ve ever wanted

please, we’ll find it together
we’ll rebuild my body
we’ll move forward into dawn

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