Loving you was the startle
of biting my own cheek, oh!,
flesh against flesh, eyes
begging to water while
I willed them dry, reciting
pretty lines beneath my
forehead as the tide rinsed
the pain free, only to
chew the wound anew.
Those looked like glory days,
a friend’s confession she could
see me blossoming, fly my
body in bright colors, full mast,
but the flowering plant was
minutes from surrender,
bloom and no one wonders
what is aching.
Years gone, but
my tongue knows the way
to the breaks in the flesh, I
relive the last time I saw you
and smiled, basement movie
screen, recall the booth at that
Chinese spot in Washington Heights,
your constant anger and its
ugliness, the way you whipped
me while you left, brute and coward,
then offered me the emptiest hug,
brute, coward, stranger, I
remember the cruelties and
shrug, memory as scar tissue,
exhuming as habit, forgetting
a forever-long failure.
If you wonder, the
answer is yes, I remember,
and yes, I regret, and
yes, I suppose this is
something like forgiving,
but, if you think, the
answer will always come back
no, you know, no.
No.
